Let’s talk some caveats here as we get into Colorado’s 8-3 shelling at the hands of the Toronto Maple Leafs. It was kind of a weird situation and it produced a weird game so let’s be real about the circumstances.

Everything was proceeding as normal and then randomly Justus Annunen, who practiced in Loveland with the Eagles this morning, was called up by the Avalanche. This only happens because of an injury, otherwise Annunen would’ve been part of the traveling party yesterday, not flying commercial last minute today.

Darcy Kuemper was announced after Avalanche morning skate as the expected starting goaltender. Then something happened and Jett Alexander, a Toronto-based going to university in the city with a fantastic name, appeared on the Avalanche website as the team’s fourth goaltender alongside Annunen.

It was noted before the game that it was an upper-body injury for Kuemper and Jonas Johansson was slated to step in. The storyline coming into the game was already injuries, but it was mostly about the return of Nathan MacKinnon after missing eight games.

Instead, it became a night to forget for Johansson, who had a golden opportunity to make the case that the completion of Pavel Francouz’s conditioning stint this weekend in the AHL should not mean the end of Johansson’s time in the NHL. It was a tough task going against a Leafs team absolutely on fire, but it turns out being a full-time goaltender in the NHL is, you know, a tough job.

Johansson wilted and the Avalanche got dog walked out of the building in the first game of a five-game road trip that is suddenly looking a whole lot more daunting with the uncertainty facing Kuemper.

Now, I don’t want any of you reading this to think I’m assigning full blame to Johansson. I’m certainly not because the Avalanche did not help him at all in the first period. The way I put it on the podcast was that the Avs did not help Johansson and Johansson did little to help himself.

But there’s no getting around the reality here; that team stole a goal in the final seconds of the first, came out on fire in the second period and outplayed the Leafs throughout. They closed to within 3-2 and had all the momentum. They created chances and looked like they were on the verge of tying it up and flipping this game on its head.

Then Travis Dermott’s slapshot made like Nightcrawler and seemed to teleport through his arm and into the net. It was 4-2 and then 5-2 and all the work the Avs skaters had done to get back into the game was undone. From there, it was a downhill run for the Leafs to make like the Globetrotters and treat the Avs like the Washington Generals.

I’m just not really sure what to make of this game.

MacKinnon’s first game back saw him post two assists, the first of which came on Sam Girard’s goal with just over one second remaining in the first period and changed the momentum heading into the first intermission.

I thought his timing was off and his work defensively left quite a bit to be desired but for a guy who hadn’t played in three weeks, it was hard to find a real complaint there. I was far more frustrated by the performance of Mikko Rantanen, who looked totally disinterested at times and like he didn’t have to put the work in now that MacKinnon was back, and Erik Johnson, whose array of poor decisions defensively and with the puck in his own zone created an extended comedy of errors that included him shooting on his own goaltender…twice.

So, room for improvement.

Bowen Byram had maybe his worst game of the season but you know that it won’t hurt his confidence any so let’s write that off as a rookie being a rookie. The other bad nights are humans being humans, but the real concern starting to show is that Colorado is having trouble getting off to competitive starts on the road.

They were down 2-0 in Dallas before I had even opened my laptop in the press box and were literally 1.2 seconds away from trailing 3-0 heading into first intermission tonight.

Coming back in the NHL is hard to do. Coming back from two and three-goal deficits is the kind of thing that happens occasionally enough around the league to make you think it’s pretty doable but in an isolated team’s season doesn’t typically happen more than a small handful of times.

The Avs keep putting themselves behind the eight ball and then they have stretches where you say, “If only the first 10 minutes of putrid hockey hadn’t happened!”

It just isn’t good enough and not only do they have four games left on this lengthy road trip, they play another six games on the road this month. 11 of their 16 December games are away from Ball Arena. They either figure out this slow start on the road thing or their season takes a turn for the worse very quickly.

It’s really up to them.

TAKEAWAYS

• Kuemper will remain with the team on the road trip, suggesting a chance the injury is not very serious but he won’t play tomorrow against Montreal and, just from a distance, sounded like the Avs will plan not to have him on Saturday in Ottawa. Annunen joined the team midway through the game tonight, replacing Alexander and giving Annunen an up-close look at how his hard future job will be some nights. Annunen was named the AHL Goaltender of the Month earlier in the day so it was a pretty big day for him. He is Colorado’s top goaltender prospect and is in his first full season in North America. If it were up to me, the combination of Johansson feeling about thisbig right now and Annunen’s availability says to give the start to the rookie and go from there. Shades of Adam Werner in Winnipeg (just, uh, forget about Adam Werner in Edmonton the game after that), I suppose.
• It got lost in the afternoon shuffle of everyone doing real-life impressions of Jim from The Office shouting “WHAT IS GOING ON” at the camera, but our own Meghan Angley spent the weekend in Loveland watching the Eagles and chatted with Greg Cronin and Sampo Ranta about Ranta’s journey and bright future ahead.
• It was Spotify Wrapped day today and I wanted to thank everyone who reached out via various social media outlets to show love for the podcast and post how much time they spent listening to the show this past year. It’s all love from us and we’d be nothing without the passion and energy you bring to our content and I will always stay on top of saying thank you for the continued support. We have some great things planned for the near future (players on the pod, perhaps?) and hope we only better serve y’all by upping the ante both on the podcast and here on the written side of things. PS my top song of the year? “Once in a Lifetime” by Landon Austin. Being in love with the right person is awesome.