Another blown lead dooms Avalanche in ugly loss to Wild

Blown leads are just a part of life in sports. But blowing leads in the third period of three straight home games? That’s a problem.

For tonight, though, the way it all unfolded differed quite a bit from what happened in losses to Carolina and Chicago last week.

In those games, Colorado was leading in the third period but took their foot off the gas, played sloppy hockey and all but encouraged those teams to climb back in and take the wins.

With tonight, however, Colorado suffered from a problem that really hasn’t been much of an issue all year – poor goaltending.

Pavel Francouz has been knocking on the door of a goalie controversy for a couple of weeks now but tonight’s performance (and a weaker game in Vegas, in my opinion) should probably mute that knocking for a little while longer.

In tonight’s 6-4 loss, Francouz made just 27 saves on 32 shots against and multiple goals given up tonight are ones you would not expect to get by him.

After erasing a two-goal deficit in the first period and a one-goal deficit in the second period, the Avs finally broke through and got the lead in the third period when Matt Calvert deflected his second puck of the night past Devan Dubnyk to put Colorado ahead 4-3.

The Avs were controlling play with the lead, which did not happen in the Carolina or Chicago games, and then a poor Cale Makar turnover led to a fat rebound by Francouz and Mats Zuccarello banged it home to tie the game.

Just a little over a minute later, Erik Johnson floated a puck through center ice trying to hit a teammate but Victor Rask intercepted it, skated down the wing and beat Francouz for the weakest goal of the night.

All the talk about defense and weaknesses here and there but goalies have to make routine stops and that game-winning goal was about as routine as it gets.

It all adds up to another bad loss at home for Colorado and six potential points they threw away by being unable to finish games. After being very good in closing games to start the year, the last two weeks have been nothing short of a disaster.

After this loss and the St. Louis win tonight, Colorado now founds themselves seven points back of the Blues. It’s not hard to see where those six points might have come in handy, eh?

Maybe even more troublesome is Colorado falls to 6-8 on the season against the Central Division. They’ve gotten fat so far on feasting on the east but as their schedule tightens up and focuses more on divisional opponents, the Avs need to figure out how to get back into the win column against them.

They have their next chance tomorrow night as they had to Dallas to take on the Stars.

GAME TAKEAWAYS

• It says something about Colorado’s top line when they played so poorly in Vegas and combined for five points and then started out tonight again getting beaten up before turning it around. Goals from Landeskog and MacKinnon late in the first and second periods helped erase deficits and change the complexion of the game. When the switch flips and they take over, as they did for stretches in the second period, it’s hard to imagine these guys not winning more games because they are just so dominant at times.
• While MacKinnon’s brilliance leaps off the ice, it was Rantanen who was quietly effective along the wall tonight that really helped that line tilt the ice in their favor at times. He was able to chase down pucks and strip Minnesota players before they could attempt a clear and it extended multiple possessions. He was a little too casual with some of his scoring chances but his commitment to the dirty work down low was effective and necessary.
• Matt Calvert…two more goals. There may be no more effective a third line than what the Avs are running out there with Nichushkin-Bellemare-Calvert these days. The Avs have an occasionally dominant top line but a third line that dominates consistently. Having an effective depth line like this just creates so many problems for opposing teams. You obviously want to match your best with MacKinnon & Co. but how do you handle this monstrosity the Avs run out? Do you burn your second-best line trying to match them or take your chances with depth on depth despite knowing they’ve torn apart most depth lines across the league? Whatever a team decides leaves the Avs either with an advantage with the Bellemare line or the Kadri line. Pick your poison, coaches.
• Whatever conversation there was about Pavel Francouz taking Grubauer’s job has been halted by two mediocre (at best) starts in a row. He had the one huge save in Vegas at the end of the second period that was big but otherwise gave up three there and was nowhere near his best tonight. I think had the Avs not been on the front-end of a back-to-back they might have pulled him in the second period when it was obvious he wasn’t very sharp.
• This was the time of year when Colorado’s goaltending swoon happened last season. It would benefit the Avs to not repeat that feat.
• Not everyone is having a great time of it right now. Joonas Donskoi has gone dark in Colorado’s top six as he has just one point (an assist) in his last eight games. Nazem Kadri also has just three points in his last nine games. Colorado’s second line definitely needs to find some juice.
• Makar got an assist tonight and has 29 points through 30 games. I don’t even really have anything left to say about him because he’s spectacular and that’s that.
• Gabe Landeskog’s one-man show to score in the first period and tie the game was spectacular. Through the neutral zone, through two defenders and deked a diving Dubnyk. The goods. Too bad it was wasted.
• Just a quick note on officiating because it was a big topic of discussion after the game: It was a poorly officiated game as basically all stick infractions were let go. That Nazem Kadri was somehow called for embellishment while being put in a headlock is insane to me. Given the benefit of mental gymnastics and replay, I can see where the argument could be made that Kadri aided the situation in latching on to Hartman’s arm and falling backward but that interpretation requires a major leap of faith and it damn sure isn’t something being calculated in real-time. It was purely a reputation call on Kadri and it wasn’t the first time they’ve gotten him for embellishment when it was total nonsense. I believe he was called for embellishing a trip in Tampa Bay and that, too, was the stuff of fiction. Just a mess.