It hasn’t happened very often this year but the Colorado Avalanche got smoked today in a game that was never all as close as the final score might indicate. Given that the Avs lost 5-1 to the Boston Bruins, it’s pretty telling how poorly they played that it probably should have been worse.

Darcy Kuemper is the guy who is going to get all the bad stats hung around him and he was arguably the only Avs player who got off the bus today. Were it not for Kuemper, the game would not have been 2-1 at one point in the second period with it looking like the Avs may be able to show some life and crawl into the game.

It was an array of bad defensive breakdowns, dominant Boston effort, and just enough puck luck to build Colorado’s worst loss since the 8-3 beatdown in Toronto on December 1.

When you consider today is February 21 and this is just Colorado’s 10th regulation loss, it’s really easy to lean back and take a big-picture look at this one.

On the micro-level, there were too many bad habits from their game against the Buffalo Sabres two days ago that were repeated today and while I won’t say it’s a cause for concern, it’s not a trend you want to see Colorado continuing to repeat.

The lack of quality defending from Colorado starts at the top where both Cale Makar and Devon Toews had lackluster performances against Buffalo and, at least in Makar’s case, a worse performance today against the Bruins.

Those guys set the tone for Colorado’s defense and even when the other pairings are riding the roller coaster of humanity (we all have ups and downs is what I’m trying to say), the Toews-Makar pairing is the almost-robotic stability the Avs are very fortunate to have.

That wasn’t the case today and it shows how mortal any team in the league is when the best players aren’t playing their best. Nathan MacKinnon’s line looked good offensively and had solid shot metrics, but also gave up a lot on the defensive end and got outscored by Boston’s big guns.

That’s a recipe for a tough day and then you add in not a single forward line beyond MacKinnon’s got anything going at 5v5, well, that’s how you get blown out.

Tough day for Darcy Kuemper, who actually played very well and watched five goals get behind him. Hockey is cruel like that, I suppose.

Overall, the numbers do a good job of telling this story so I’ll drop those and get on with it.

Shots: 45-29 BOS
Scoring Chances (all situations): 34-18 BOS
High-Danger Chances (all situations): 20-4 BOS

There you go. The Bruins dominated, the Avs didn’t have any kind of meaningful response, and Colorado has its second regulation loss in the last week. In a “What have you done for lately?” kind of world, the Avs are 2-2 in their last four games and 4-2-1 in their last seven. Somehow, that’s a significant step back for them.

How a team responds to games like this is almost always more meaningful than this type of loss itself so the attention turns to Wednesday night’s road trip finale in Detroit.

TAKEAWAYS

• He’s been pretty solid overall the last few weeks but this was a nightmare of an effort from Jack Johnson. All of the puck management concerns cropped up but his defending in his own zone was awful today and that’s something that has been a strength for him this year. This is especially true right in front of his own net, where he’s battled hard and been okay. Today, however, he was a disaster. Can’t overreact to one game and his partner, Sam Girard, certainly wasn’t any better today, but that is a concern for the Avs as this season carries on. The Byram uncertainty lingers over everything.
• There’s video going around after the game of Nathan MacKinnon appearing to swat at a linesman after a faceoff. It’s only from the overhead angle and you can’t definitively tell MacKinnon actually hits him, but it will be interesting to see if the league looks into it a little more. Just on the surface, it’s odd to me that the ref would allow that if he realized it happened and on the short video there doesn’t seem to be a reaction of any kind so more camera angles would really be helpful. If he did it, that’s an automatic 10-game suspension so this is kind of a big deal over the next 48 hours. I’ll post the only video of the incident that I’ve seen so far below and you can drop a comment below and tell me what you think!

Mackinnon upset hits linesman with stick #nhl #goavs ⁦@NHL⁩ pic.twitter.com/Ubg6qWG2pp

— Michael Ryan (@ryancopyme) February 21, 2022