Another Avalanche collapse raises the question of their ability to be the best version of themselves

After their 19th game and still sitting in a playoff spot, it would seem an odd time to push the panic button for the Colorado Avalanche. Just four points behind first-place Vegas, the Avs have started well enough to feel like they’ve weathered the early-season storms that have come their way, from another rash of injuries to a COVID shutdown that halted them just as they appeared to find their legs.

But after the team’s second 6-2 loss in its last four games, this time to the struggling San Jose Sharks, you can’t help but wonder why this team can’t seem to string together strong appearances.

The Avs were on a 4-0-1 stretch before the COVID pause and looked like they were gaining strength despite losing players to injury. The break was widely viewed ultimately as a positive as it allowed some guys, notably Nathan MacKinnon and Devon Toews, to get back healthy and ready to go.

Since returning, however, the Avs are just 4-4, a perfect .500, the very definition of average. It was one thing to split the series with Vegas 2-2, then lose 6-2 in a game that was 3-2 halfway through the third period at home to the white-hot Minnesota Wild.

But blowing a 2-0 lead against the Sharks, a team with terrible goaltending who was just 7-9-2 coming into the game, immediately following a dominant two-game sweep over the Arizona Coyotes?

What?

In the big picture of the regular season, the main reason any of us likely remember this game is because the team blew a two-goal lead and collapsed so spectacularly with so little pushback to an opponent they shouldn’t be playing down to.

Part of learning to be a consistent winner in the NHL is understanding that you have to climb the mountain against the best players in the world every single day, every single every, every single shift. A team that wins is one that puts in the work.

Teams that coast by on ability don’t get remembered in NHL lore. Their only legacy is they get forgotten.

It’s not time to pull the fire alarm and make a scene-changing trade. Any talk of firing a head coach who has guided the Avalanche to steady progression across five years is still premature (Colorado’s current point pace across an 82-game season would be 99, their highest since 2013-14’s division-winning team).

But it’s fair to wonder with just 37 games remaining in this shortened regular season if this team has enough time to figure out who it wants to be.

Are they the high-flying, comically-skilled offensive juggernaut they were billed to be? Through 19 games, they absolutely aren’t. Their goal-scoring efforts have put them in the middle of the pack this year, just outside the bottom-third of the league.

They’ve gotten by with ridiculous goaltending by Philipp Grubauer, unsustainable dominance on the penalty kill, and a strong power play that has helped mask poor even-strength scoring.

Outside of the power play, which effectively scored both of Colorado’s goals tonight (the first came within two seconds of the first PP ending), none of the list of traits that have led to their success applied tonight. Grubauer wilted and the PK gave up a completely unremarkable goal to Erik Karlsson while the team again struggled to score, this time on Martin Jones, who has been one of the league’s worst starting goaltenders across the last two seasons.

There are always moments of adversity in the regular season. Losing while playing well is about keeping faith in what you’re doing. That was the focus last week after the Vegas and Minnesota games where the Avs put forth respectable efforts but just couldn’t find their way.

Tonight was not that. Blowing a two-goal lead was already a problem but going into the third period tied at 2-2 and getting blown out? By the Sharks?

If this team means business about being a contender for the Stanley Cup, the only description of this game from themselves should be one thing: Unacceptable.

No words said by anyone during the press conference mean anything. What they do in two days will tell us everything we need to know about how they felt about tonight’s performance.

We’ll see Wednesday just how seriously they take themselves.