Disastrous third period sends Avalanche to fourth consecutive loss

Going into the third period with the score still sitting at 0-0, the Colorado Avalanche had to feel pretty good about their chances to end their three-game losing skid and beat the Winnipeg Jets to salvage something from what had been a nightmare of a road trip to that point.

The Avs had been outplayed through two periods but had some good scoring chances and goaltender Darcy Kuemper had bounced back from a rough outing two nights ago in Edmonton and seemed to be back in his groove.

Colorado watched as unlikely a combination of Jack and Erik Johnson start the breakout and fly through the neutral zone and EJ found J.T. Compher alone in front for the game’s first goal just five minutes into the third period.

All the Avs had to do was play 15 minutes of clean hockey and all the negativity could be in the rearview mirror as they head back home to their own beds and probably some reinforcements on the way.

Instead, 11 minutes later the Avs were trailing 4-1 and on their way to a season-high fourth consecutive loss. While losses against the Washington Capitals and Edmonton Oilers are at least losses taken against playoff teams, poor efforts against the Jets and Seattle Kraken?

For a team that had been so resilient in the face of so many injuries all season, watching them wilt in third periods against the Caps and Jets and score first but proceed to get pounded in the Oilers and Jets games has provided enough negative fodder for seeds of doubt to begin creeping in.

While neither Compher nor head coach Jared Bednar would push the panic button in speaking with the media after the game, both raised concerns that the standard set all season was suddenly consistently not being met.

The commitment to the details was lacking, the execution was poor, the effort questionable. Everything about the team’s performances over the last week has been nothing short of alien compared to the team who secured its 55th win in impressive fashion over Carolina just eight days ago.

That win secured both the Central Division title and the conference’s top seed, giving the Avs home-ice advantage through at least three rounds of the postseason. With the President’s Trophy all but slipped away to the Florida Panthers, there’s simply nothing of real meaning for this Avs team to play for except, I suppose, the goodwill of going into the postseason winning games and feeling good about itself.

This is one of those scenarios where two things can be true at the same time. On one hand, the spotty play of the team and Bednar’s willingness to let banged-up players heal up a bit is absolutely playing a meaningful role in the lackluster performances. On the other hand, a season-high losing streak the week before the regular season ends doesn’t inspire confidence the team is going into the playoffs on the right foot.

To my eye, I’m seeing some of Colorado’s top guys really take their foot off the gas. Nazem Kadri hasn’t gotten close to back into gear since returning from injury in the Kraken game, Nathan MacKinnon doesn’t look like he’s even broken a sweat since the Caps game, and Colorado’s entire defense kind of looks like a lost puppy with Devon Toews back there to keep them all in line.

In a league where your best players often determine how a team’s success, those guys gearing it down in the name of not getting hurt in what are otherwise meaningless games is something you can easily point to when trying to account for these struggles. The losses also largely coincide with Mikko Rantanen, the team’s leading scorer, missing this entire road trip with an illness of some sort and Toews no back there to be the defensive anchor that makes everyone better.

Those are meaningful losses to the lineup, but there’s no true excuse for the way the team has lost its way during games in this losing streak. They’ve lost focus and that’s the kind of thing that has separated this club all season. Anytime they’ve had an off night or two, they’ve responded with thunder, with fury, almost playing as if they were angry to even be doubted.

Where has that fire gone? Can they get it back before the postseason starts?

With home games against St. Louis and Nashville this week before finishing up in Minnesota on Friday, this is as good a group to get their mojo back as any. The Predators could be Colorado’s Round 1 opponent and if the Avs get to Round 2, it is guaranteed to be against one of the Blues or Wild, so hey, send one last message that you aren’t to be trifled with this time around.

Or not. A seven-game losing streak going into the playoffs could be cool, too, I suppose?

TAKEAWAYS

• I don’t think there are any answers to what’s best or what’s wrong or what any of this means in the bigger picture, but the timing of this slump sure is fascinating in terms of the responses it is producing from people. Losing always makes people nervous. From an observational standpoint, it’s been interesting to watch how different people handle this stretch of games.
• Josh Manson missed the entire third period with what Bednar described as a chronic elbow issue where it “locks up” and has to get worked out until he’s good to go. By the time Manson was ready to return, the game was already decided so there wasn’t any point in him returning to the ice. I’m a pretty inquisitive guy, so I did a little Googling to see what this chronic issue could be. Not guaranteed this is it, but this result did pop up: “Elbow Locking is a mechanical problem where loose bodies (fragments of bone or cartilage) move around inside the elbow joint and get caught between the moving parts. When this happens the joint gets stuck until the loose body moves. The joint is often painful after locking has happened.” Uh, sounds fun?
• I thought Kuemper was playing great tonight and then the team in front of him absolutely abandoned him. Also some pretty great puck luck for the Jets in the third period, but given all the close calls the Avs got away with in periods one and two, it only felt like karmic justice for Winnipeg to get those little breaks.
• This was my second game in Winnipeg in as many weeks and last time I had mentioned the speed skating competition they do during intermission. I took video of it this time at the request of a number of followers so if you’re interested in it, here you go. I don’t know who ‘Jet’ is, but keep in mind that Jordan Kyrou won the Faster Skater competition with a one-lap time of 13.55 seconds. For ‘Jet” to put up a two-lap time at 28 seconds? Absolutely flying. Fun to watch. Maybe the best part of the night.