The Colorado Avalanche got rolled in a 7-2 loss to the Columbus Blue Jackets. These were the Avs studs and duds.

Studs

It just doesn’t matter

I thought the Avalanche played pretty well for the competitive portion of the game. I liked how the top players were vibing, especially Nathan MacKinnon‘s line, but in a game you lost by five goals, what does it honestly matter?

Duds

Scott Wedgewood

It isn’t very often that you feel like the bulk of the blame for a loss goes on the shoulders of one player, but Wedgewood’s awful start tonight makes me feel that way. The team in front of him wasn’t playing poorly by any stretch and two of the four goals that Wedgewood allowed were shots from the point that he managed to make a mess of. The fourth goal, the one that got him pulled, was another shot from the point he couldn’t handle cleanly, that became a free rebound in front.

Would you like an Avalanche skater to be a little more present when Cole Sillinger had multiple wacks at the rebound? Sure, of course, but an unscreened shot from the point that hit the middle of Wedgewood’s body should turn into a whistle, not a rebound of any kind, let alone two.

I’m normally a pretty big proponent of being in the moment you’re in, especially when it comes to evaluating goaltenders, but there is a real conversation to be had about Wedgewood’s station as the Avalanche backup.

The noise from people like me will only get louder as top prospect Ilya Nabokov continues playing lights-out hockey in the AHL for the Colorado Eagles, but the door is only open because Wedgewood’s poor start to the season has created that chance.

Tonight was Wedgewood’s fifth start of the season. In those games, he has produced just two quality starts, a loss in New Jersey where he was under siege and the shootout loss against the Dallas Stars. Both games were SEGABABAs, as was tonight’s, so you wonder if maybe he should have played last night in Chicago and Mackenzie Blackwood should have gotten this game.

Either way, this was nowhere near good enough from Wedgewood and it sunk Colorado‘s chances at winning.

The Logan O’Connor breakaway

In the second period, O’Connor had a clean breakaway with the Avs trailing 2-1. Keep in mind O’Connor hasn’t scored a regular-season goal since March of 2025, so he seemed due to make a game-changing play.

He didn’t, and Columbus scored moments later to make it 3-1 and kickstart what became a rout of a second period.

It’s easy to point to O’Connor’s breakaway as the moment the wheels truly fell off for the Avs. Had he scored, it’s a 2-2 game and who knows what happens from there? Maybe Wedgewood’s game snaps into form (magically, I guess?); maybe the Avalanche special teams stop being in the tank; maybe any number of things happen.

But that didn’t happen, and we know what did, which is O’Connor’s goalless streak carries on and the Avalanche got run over from that moment on.

Avs Unsung Hero

Cale Makar

I couldn’t really leave this blank and I wasn’t sure what else to give love here, so I’m going with Makar. He had some defensive missteps if you were really looking hard for something to nitpick (maybe tie up the stick on the first goal, next time?). I loved his work with the puck, though, and thought his aggression was much more of what you want to see from a player with Makar’s high-end skill.

I’d like to see more of that in the next few games. That would be cool.