Avs stumble out of post-Christmas break in 3-1 loss

Sitting in the shadow of a quiet Elitch Gardens, the Pepsi Center played home to Denver’s most intense roller coaster on Wednesday night as the Colorado Avalanche lost 3-1 to the Arizona Coyotes.

The abysmal Coyotes rolled into town fresh off the NHL’s mandatory Christmas break still smarting from their 6-2 beatdown at home against these same Avs last Saturday night. Not looking anything like the eight-win team they were at the start of the night, they outplayed and outworked Colorado on a night that reminded everyone just how far the Avalanche might still be from relevance.

To Colorado’s credit, they pushed hard in the third period. Facing a one-goal deficit, the Avalanche offense came alive as they outshot the Coyotes 13-7, created 11 scoring chances (compared to seven in the first two periods combined), and generally dominated the third period.

Chances aren’t goals, however, and the Avalanche didn’t handle themselves like a team ready to push for the playoffs, which they could have legitimately started talking about with a win tonight that would have pushed them just one point from the race.

As the Avalanche made their ultimately futile comeback attempt, defenseman Mark Barberio, filling in on the right side for the injured Tyson Barrie, misplayed the puck into the teeth of Arizona’s attacking forwards and they converted the turnover into a Lawson Crouse goal, his first of the season, at 15:35 to put Arizona ahead 3-1 and sink the dagger into Colorado’s remaining hopes.

“I was trying to throw [the puck] back in towards the net and the guy got in the lane,” Barberio explained. “It’s my job to make sure I stay in between him and the net even though he’s in his defensive zone. Looking back, obviously, I just want to punch the puck back in around the boards and give our forwards a chance to work it down low.

Hockey is a game of mistakes. I made one and got punished for it.”

Barberio’s mistake was hardly the only one tonight as the Avalanche played an unwatchable first two periods tonight. They started the game slowly, something they’ve now made a habit of in the last month regardless of quality of competition, and paid the price for it with a Tobias Rieder goal at just 54 seconds to put Arizona up 1-0.

Rieder took advantage of goaltender Semyon Varlamov expecting the puck to be behind the net but defenseman Erik Johnson made a nice play to strip Brandon Perlini of the puck but his denial landed right on Rieder’s stick and he had an open net to shoot at as Varlamov was still looking behind the goal.

“They had a break too so it’s not an excuse for us,” Barberio said. “We knew coming in they were going to want some retribution for the game on Saturday. It was just a rusty performance from us. Too many turnovers. A lot of times, that’s the game. It’s not what you take it’s what you leave and we left too much on the ice for them.”

Colorado didn’t waste a lot of time in swinging back the momentum as Johnson made an easy stretch pass to Mikko Rantanen, who took advantage of a bad Coyotes change and walked in and sniped one high on the blocker side to beat goalie Antti Raanta and tie the game.

Defenseman Alex Goligoski put Arizona ahead 2-1 on an odd-man rush in the second period created by poor Avalanche decision-making in the offensive zone. It was a microcosm of Colorado’s entire night.

As the team continues it’s six-game homestand Friday night when the high-scoring Toronto Maple Leafs come to town, they will look to refocus on what has made them successful so far this year, especially at home.

“Just getting back to what works for us and that’s playing smart and simple hockey,” Barberio stated. “When opportunities are there to get in the zone and make plays, we’ve got to take them. If they’re not there, we can’t force it and make sure we’re playing hard in the d-zone. That’s given us success and we got away from that tonight.”