Costly mistakes haunt Avs as they blow lead to Hurricanes

It doesn’t take much to blow a lead. And tonight, it didn’t take much for the Avs to go from leaving with two points to ending up with nothing.

Three goals in 2:50 was all the Hurricanes needed to come back and beat the Avalanche by a score of 3-1.

The Avs, playing on the second half of a back to back, went down to essentially four defensemen in the final ten minutes of the game, and those four defensemen looked exhausted, making crucial mistakes that ended up costing the game. We’ll get to that later, but head coach Bednar simply was not happy afterward, particularly on the game-winner.

“It’s the second one that bugs me,” Bednar said after the game. “Three different guys could have broken that up. Just a bad play.”

It was a sloppy two periods of hockey, as there was not a lot of even-strength play to be had. The Avs had many chances to blow this game open, as they had five power plays in the first two periods alone, including a short two-man advantage, but the power play looked completely disjointed and was not able to get any momentum at all.

In the third period, Nathan MacKinnon took matters into his own hands, breaking from the usual power-play setup and putting a shot on net that Captain Gabriel Landeskog tipped in. From there, the Avs looked like they would be fine, but the Hurricanes, a very good team, kept coming.

On the game-tying goal, both defensemen (Cole and Girard) got outmuscled, and the center on the shift (Bellemare) got beat on two chances to get the puck out. That’s all the Hurricanes needed, as Grubauer made the initial save, but was unable to stop the rebound.

The game-winner, however, was inexcusable. J.T. Compher, the third forward high, took a chance down low and got caught, and Ian Cole got caught flat-footed below the blueline. The Hurricanes broke the puck out easily and defenseman Jaccob Slavin joined the rush to pick up the game-winning goal. The Hurricanes would add an empty netter to seal it late.

The Avs now will look to bounce back on Saturday night against Chicago, a team they have dominated this season. The game starts at 7 PM MST.

TAKEAWAYS

• The Avs did get Erik Johnson back in this game, and he may have been their best defenseman all night. He was moving his feet and seemed like he wanted to make a difference, particularly offensively. He had a nice rush up the ice in the first period that should have resulted in a penalty against Carolina, but I think the refs put their whistles away, as they had already called three against the Hurricanes early.
• The Hurricanes deserve a lot of credit. They more or less eliminated the Avs top line at even strength. Jaccob Slavin, who scored the game-winner, was on MacKinnon all night long and MacKinnon was held to just one shot attempt at even strength.
• It was a nice bounce-back game from Philipp Grubauer. The Hurricanes came out shooting from everywhere, and I think that helped him get into the game. He was certainly not to blame in this one.
• Ian Cole had a disastrous third period, one that he may need to burn the tape on. He’s been a lot better of late, but he was getting beat in front of his own net a lot and then made the messy pinch on the game-winner. Just not what you would expect from the veteran.
• The big controversy in this one was the benching of Nikita Zadorov for the entire third period. Zadorov threw a big hit on Nino Niederreiter on his last shift, and then the two of them jawed on the way to the bench, with both of them cross-checking each other, and that was the end of it. Z didn’t take a shift the rest of the game. Some have told me he was seen arguing with the coaches, but I’m not sure what it would have been about. Nearly taking a penalty? Zadorov has been extremely disciplined of late and hasn’t put the team shorthanded in 15 games now. This will be something to watch on Saturday, but considering the Avs were on the second half of a back to back, benching a defenseman for an entire period was a questionable choice, and the defenders looked pretty tired late in this one.