In sports, as in life, when things are going well, it’s easy to imagine all the ways in which that can turn and all your good vibes and fortune disappear. The fear is not knowing at which angle the universe will attack you.

Enter the Avalanche, a team that entered Game 1 of their series against the Dallas Stars having lost just twice since entering the NHL’s bubble environment in Edmonton last month and fresh off one of the more dominant series performances we’ve seen in recent history.

With good health and high quality of play, it was easy to see that if things continued to work this way for Colorado, they could make quick work of the Stars and get into the conference finals for the first time since the Peter Forsberg-Joe Sakic Avs.

The first period of Game 1 saw all of that good fortune rapidly disappear, along with the strong play that propelled them to this position in the first place as the Stars jumped out to and early lead and cruised to a 5-3 victory in Game 1.

Casual puck management early on helped Dallas get an early lead and build off the sky-high confidence gleaned from their Game 6 thrashing of the Calgary Flames two nights ago. Dallas outplayed Colorado early and key breakdowns from Colorado’s defense helped create a three-goal first period for the Stars.

“To me, the biggest thing was we had half our team not show up to play,” Avs head coach Jared Bednar said. “I could pick apart a lot of that game that I didn’t like but when it comes down to it, they were, as a team, engaged, ready to go. We had a little bit of a slow start and we’re ready to engage and compete to win the hockey game. I thought we were starting to come for a while but we weren’t. That was just our big guys playing.”

While there may not have been too much for the Avs to watch on video and look to clean up from their series against Arizona, the first period of Game 1 has given the Avalanche video coach plenty to put up during tomorrow’s video session.

“I did not like our d corps tonight,” Bednar said. “I did not like a lot of our middle-six wingers. We had a couple workers in the bottom six but we did not have enough people playing. You might be able to get away with one or two passengers at this time of the year but you’re not getting away with any more than that, not against a team like Dallas. That’s on us, that’s on me as the head coach. We need to be way better.”

While Nathan MacKinnon’s line absolutely tore Dallas apart, scoring all three of Colorado’s goals and heavily tilting the ice throughout the game, the rest of the Avalanche lineup was a mess. None of the lines had any chemistry and not a single forward beyond the MacKinnon line finished over 50% in Corsi at 5v5.

The stoic Bednar didn’t show much emotion during his postgame presser but he did mention he had a (probably loud) conversation with the team immediately following the loss.

“They have to know exactly how we feel as a coaching staff,” Bednar said. “I’m sure other players in the room are thinking it, too. It just depends on the time and the score. We were still in the hockey game. We made some bad decisions, some bad reads. I give Dallas all the credit. They were engaged and ready to go to compete to win the hockey game. They’re already one step ahead on us tonight but we handed them some…we did some not smart things. Our brains were not turned on and we weren’t engaged. That’s a lethal duo for us. We have to be better.”

It was nothing short of a mess for the Avs, who got their first true taste of postseason struggles. No team who has ever won the Stanley Cup has done so easily. This was a harsh reminder just how tough the road in front of them really is.

Now trailing in the series, the road is just that much harder. They have to respond on Monday night in Game 2 or this series threatens to get away from them.

TAKEAWAYS

• I have to start with the defense here. Colorado’s defensive coverage throughout the majority of the postseason has been so good for most of their games that there hasn’t been too much to complain about. The PK was great coming into this series and their suppression of shot quality and quantity had been very good even before the Arizona series. As a group, they just hadn’t laid a true egg yet. Well, that’s over with now because that group struggled mightily tonight. The combination of bad luck (Erik Johnson’s injury), puck management (Ian Cole and Ryan Graves) and poor reads (Graves and Nikita Zadorov) led to some golden scoring chances for the Stars. It’s hard to really get on either goaltender when guys are scoring on the highest quality scoring chances in the game.
• That leads me to the goaltending. Philipp Grubauer gave up three goals in the first period before exiting with an injury early in the second period but I’m struggling to beat him up too much for the damage against. Tyler Seguin may not have scored up to this point but I wonder how many point-blank chances with nobody home defensively he’s gotten and THEN he got the benefit of a good tip from Johnson’s outstretched stick. Alexander Radulov on a clean breakaway? Then that Blake Comeau goal that deflected off Graves, then off the ice, then off the post and in? You have to really want to be looking to blame Grubauer for something there. Pavel Francouz similarly had the “quality against” problem when he gave up the fourth Dallas goal off a Benn-Radulov two-on-one where he made the initial save but the rebound kicked right to Radulov and he slammed it home behind a diving Ian Cole. This is a long-winded way to say that I’m not drilling the Avalanche goalies for this one. Would a huge save have been nice? Obviously! But those are the kinds of chances Colorado just hadn’t been giving up and it turns out that makes a goaltender’s life much easier. That fifth goal probably needs to be stopped, however.
• For the moment, it appears to be Francouz’s net. We’ll see how it goes with Grubauer’s health but once again the door opens for Francouz to steal the job and make a name for himself. Nothing is bigger than getting a chance in the playoffs. This is where goaltenders get reputations, good or bad, that follow them for years and either lead to multiple chances at jobs down the road or…not.
• I loved Zadorov in the Arizona series. Everything I liked about his game disappeared in this one and all of the things in his game that frustrate you cropped up all at once. So casual on the play that lad to Seguin’s game-opening goal and just a terribly lazy read on the fourth Dallas goal. He has to get a lot better in Game 2.
• No Matt Calvert in this one as he participated in warm-ups and then did not play for whatever reason. Because of the “unfit to play” designation used in these playoffs, we basically never know what’s going on with these guys. His absence was notable, however, as Colorado’s little fourth line that could went from locomotive to toy train in a hurry. He’s clearly the linchpin of that line. They badly missed his presence during the San Jose series last year and they clearly missed him tonight. Hopefully whatever ails him is short-term.
• Nathan MacKinnon is a monster and should be feared on every shift but he really needs some help. Gabe Landeskog had a pretty decent game but Mikko Rantanen still is searching for that big breakout game of this postseason. I thought he was better than most of what we saw from him against Arizona but he’s getting paid to be an impact player every night, not every few nights.