Avs almost bumble it away, but hold on to beat Buffalo

There was an awful lot of bad hockey on the ice in Buffalo Sunday night. Fortunately for the Colorado Avalanche, its bad brand of hockey wasn’t quite as bad as the Buffalo Sabres’ bad brand of hockey.

So, they’ll take Sunday’s two points gained in a 5-4 win over the Sabres, atrocious a game as it was. It salvaged a three-game road trip that saw them outscored 9-2 in the first two games. Tyson Jost’s pinball goal, on the power play, after the Avs had allowed TWO short-handed goals to the Sabres already, gave the Avs a 4-2 lead in the third. And, Gabriel Bourque, no relation to Raymond, continued his relatively torrid pace with what proved a crucial insurance goal, which helped overcome a three-point night for the former Av, Ryan O’Reilly. Evander Kane scored with just under three minutes left to make it a 5-4 game, a goal with goalie Robin Lehner off for the extra skater.

Though they won’t be sending the tape of this one to the Hockey Hall of Fame, the Avs don’t really care about style points right now. They’re just trying to survive this loss of Nathan MacKinnon to their lineup, just trying to survive a February road odyssey that has them traveling more than Rush did on their first tour.

Well, let’s back up for a second. This was really kind of an embarrassing win. Somehow, the Avs let an awful Sabres team dominate the final minutes of a game they should have closed out long before. It was truly panic time in the final minute of this one, with the Avs just praying for the horn to sound before they could screw this up any further.

Whatever, a win’s a win I guess.

The Avs just really need Nathan MacKinnon back, along with Mark Barberio on the back end. They are playing scattershot, brain-dead hockey too much of the time. Against any other team, the way they played Sunday, the Avs would have gotten blown out again.

Alexander Kerfoot, Matt Nieto and Colin Wilson also scored for the Avs, who were outshot 33-27 and won only 35 percent of the game’s faceoffs. Nieto’s goal was a shortie himself, one that gave the Avs a 2-1 lead in the first.

The Avs will come home for a game Wednesday against the Montreal Canadiens, before going back, bizarrely, on the road to Winnipeg for one game and then coming back home for one game against Edmonton. Then, the Avs go on the road for three more in Western Canada.

For now, it’s all about survival.