Emotional fragility defines another Avalanche blown lead

Last week, I wrote about Colorado’s search for an identity. After a disappointing loss to a hurting Vegas team on home ice, the Avs responded with strong wins over St. Louis and Minnesota, two teams off to great starts who were stopped in their tracks by the Avalanche.

Maybe it’s the lingering effects of the hellscape that was 2020 but Colorado’s two-game win streak feels like a lifetime ago already, especially after their roller coaster of an overtime loss to the Columbus Blue Jackets tonight.

That’s the NHL’s youngest roster in Columbus, mind you, that erased a 2-0 deficit late in the second period and dropped four straight goals, pushing the Avs to the brink of an even more embarrassing loss in regulation.

The brilliance of Bowen Byram kept them from getting zero points, but the self-inflicted mistakes that watched their 2-0 lead turn into a 4-2 deficit continued in overtime where Columbus won quickly and easily.

It was poor effort combined with poor reads and poor execution. All of it was just poor. After a promising 35 minutes or so, it seemed to come out of nowhere, too. Colorado was leading 2-0 and outplaying Columbus across the board when they went on a power play with a chance to effectively slam the door shut.

Surely the championship-caliber Avalanche, even without a few important players, could muster up a competitive attempt on special teams, right?

Not really.

Instead, the Blue Jackets killed the penalty with relative ease and then used the good feelings from the kill to springboard into attack mode. They cut the deficit in half going into the third and then tied the time just about a minute into the third period before adding two more and taking complete control of the game.

What?

Look, let’s be honest and understand that the absences of Mikko Rantanen, Andre Burakovsky, Val Nichushkin, Cale Makar, Devon Toews, and Pavel Francouz played some part in tonight’s outcome. That’s just natural.

But to be leading 2-0 and controlling the game? That was the game going according to plan. They were working hard and committed to the details they need to be committed to in order to be successful, especially with the talent deficit the team is facing in the wake of another onslaught of injury problems.

When Colorado failed to convert on the power play, Columbus completely took over the game.

Instead of this being another character-revealing win for a beaten-up Avalanche to build from, it ended up being a reminder of the emotional fragility this club is dealing with after the way their season ended last year (also blowing a 2-0 lead, mind you).

Something is clearly wrong.

It could be as simple as the missing talent is too much for Colorado to overcome, even with Nathan MacKinnon on hand. The reality is that’s absolutely possible.

Also possible, however, is this is a team that simply doesn’t have the emotional maturity to handle a team punching back in a game. When things are going their way, they look like the same confident team as last year, slowly building a lead and stringing together positive outcome-driven shifts.

It’s all process, belief, and a touch of high-end talent to boot.

The second things don’t go Colorado’s way, however, they shrink up emotionally, starting with their best players. MacKinnon was flying early in this game but disappeared more and more as the game wore on, culminating in a ghastly turnover with Jonas Johansson pulled and the Avs trying to tie the game at 4-4 to get to overtime and salvage a point.

Luckily for MacKinnon, his cross-ice feed right to the tape of Gustav Nyquist resulted in an icing, not the icing on the Columbus regulation victory cake. Byram’s rocket from the blueline moments later did, in fact, tie the game and give MacKinnon an assist on the evening, but the team went as its best player did in this one: good early looks before fading as things got tough.

That’s where the Avs still sit. They’re battling injuries, but the most important battle they appear to be dealing with is the one with themselves. When something bad happens to them, can they find the way to battle through adversity or will they continue this “deer in the headlights” routine where they are frozen by fear of a mistake, fear of what comes next.

When a team starts waiting for something bad to happen to it, they end up creating a self-fulfilling prophecy where bad things will continue to happen. Maybe getting a healthy lineup will help head coach Jared Bednar shake the dust on an emotionally unstable roster.

If Bednar doesn’t find any answers soon, however, the coach whose contract expires at the end of the year and doesn’t currently have an extension in place might be the one who finds something bad happening to him next.

TAKEAWAYS

• The Avs are only nine games into the season and haven’t played with their preferred lineup once to date. It’s an important piece of context here, especially as I continue making mention of a lack of emotional Avalanche maturity. It matters. You can throw your hands up and say that injuries are a part of life and every team needs to learn to handle adversity and you’d be exactly right, but it’s also true that an organization shouldn’t be quick to do something drastic (like firing the head coach) until they’ve had to see what this group can really look like together. There’s time here, but not a ton. The Avs have a limited slate this month and the quality of opponents in November is a lot lower than it was in October. That should help, at least in terms of getting healthy. Colorado’s cushion is going to disappear pretty quickly, though, if they don’t stack points. It doesn’t feel great right now but they’ve gotten five of their last six possible points. It’s trending in the right direction when you look at it that way, but how the sausage got made tonight is absolutely not encouraging. I’m a level-headed guy most of the time so I want to stress there’s still time here, but it gets late awfully early in the NHL for teams that lollygag thinking they can just flip the switch and make a run. The Avs have the high-end talent for something like that, but they cannot wait much longer to get going. Tonight needs to be a poorly-timed blip, not a continuation of bad habits we’ve seen this year.