Jonathan Bernier, behind new mask, could be face of Avs in goal down the stretch

Jonathan Bernier was worried about that last concussion, his second one within a month. After taking a slap shot straight to the facemask from the Arizona Coyotes’ Oliver Ekman-Larsson in a March 10 game, Bernier started seeing things he shouldn’t.

“Things started getting blurry. I started seeing black and white spots,” Bernier said.

It was Bernier’s first game since suffering a previous concussion, Feb. 16 in Winnipeg. The goalie who led the Avs to a 10-game win streak at one point, who had for a time claimed the No. 1 job with the Colorado Avalanche, suddenly couldn’t make it through a full game anymore. It was a huge worry, not just for his own sake, but that of the team.

Suddenly, it was all up to Semyon Varlamov to play every night, a guy with his own checkered health history. Varlamov did a superb job, and if the Avs are to make the playoffs, he’ll get a large portion of the credit for the job he did in the five weeks without Bernier.

But it’s probably time for Varlamov to take a nice little rest now. He’s earned it, first off, but there was always an uneasy feeling having him play so much, given his groin problems from last year and parts of this one.

Make no mistake: Varlamov was not the main reason the Avs were blown out by the Los Angeles Kings Thursday night at home. The players in front of him made tons of mistakes. Nobody on the roster played well.

But Varly didn’t exactly cover up for them either. He, like the rest, had a bad night. It’s time for Bernier – health permitting – to take some of the load off him again. Yeah, Bernier looked rusty out there too. He was beaten clean on shots by Anze Kopitar (his fourth goal of the night) and Tobias Rieder. But the game was long over by the time he came in, at 5-1 Kings.

If Bernier is to stay concussion-free this time, he might wind up crediting a new helmet be broke out Thursday. It’s a bigger, thicker helmet. For now, it’s generic white, because Bernier’s custom-painted one didn’t arrive in time Thursday like he expected.

Bernier, who has never used such a helmet, said it felt good on him for the first night out.

“I’m feeling confident with it,” Bernier said. “I can’t really say if it (was) the helmet or not (for the concussions). You’re just trying to find answers.”

If Bernier is tasked with the start Saturday against Vegas, he will be more than happy to step up.

“I’m ready to go. Obviously, it’s not the ideal situation, when you haven’t played in a while, but I felt pretty good, to be honest. I got beat by Kopitar, real quick release. I just think, as a team, we gave them too much space. They’re a patient team. They just wait for you to turn the puck over and they capitalize on it.”

Asked about Bernier’s play, coach Jared Bednar said he thought it was “pretty good.”

“We hung him out to dry there on a couple shots,” Bednar said. “But I think that was the one positive out of this game; with the score the way it was, we get him an opportunity to get back in and play some minutes. I thought he looked sharp, looked in control. … we’ve got two guys we can lean on now down the finish.”

It will probably come down to this: whoever wins the last game is probably going to get the next start in net, and vice-versa. The Avs only have eight games left – four at home and four on the road. Their Wild Card lead could be cut down to a point is St. Louis takes care of business and beats last-place Vancouver at home Friday.

Whatever happens in St. Louis, Bednar said, his players can’t worry about it.

“If you start watching the scoreboard, start watching what everyone else is doing, you start riding an emotional roller-coaster,” Bednar said. “Yeah, you like to look at the scoreboard and see if you got help, but we’re not expecting any help. This is on us. We know that there’s a tough schedule coming up. We’re going to play eight more games like this.”