Listless Avalanche effort ends disappointing road trip

There are losses and then there are losses.

Even the best NHL teams lose around  30 games in a season but there are always a few that really stick out.

When you have a 2-0 lead six minutes into the first period against a rookie goaltender making his NHL debut, you should be well on your way to securing two points that night.

Instead, Colorado suffered maybe the most frustrating of their losses in a month with more of them than they’d like thanks to their continued inability to hang on to leads.

Tonight’s 5-3 loss to the New York Rangers was the exact opposite of the last night’s. Whereas the 1-0 loss to the Islanders 24 hours ago featured the Avs pounding the Isles in possession and piling up significantly more scoring chances but getting denied by a hot goaltender, this was a far less acceptable way to lose a game.

When a team plays a quality game and loses, you tip your cap. The other team is full of NHL players, too, after all. When a team is gifted a two-goal lead in the opening minutes of the game and completely shuts it down for the next 55 minutes, it’s the kind of thing that should send the coaching staff into a whirlwind of fire and fury.

How do you sit back against a team that isn’t even really competing for a playoff spot and watch them not only erase your lead but beat you in every facet of the game from that point forward?

Sure, you’re not going to win every game. That’s not a reasonable expectation. And this another Avalanche SEGABABA (second night of a back to back) where the team on the second night didn’t play the night before.

But in New York City, it’s the easiest back-to-back possible. They stay in the same hotel both nights and there’s zero travel involved. They simply go to a different rink. So I’m erasing that built-in excuse for a pathetic effort.

I’m not one to lob the “poor effort” grenade very often because it’s simply not something we can truly know from afar very often. But when a team plays with absolutely no juice whatsoever, it’s obvious they aren’t going 100% and that was the case with Colorado tonight.

Up 2-0 six minutes into the game, they watched New York dismantle their lead and put them into a 3-2 hole. The Avs mustered a little pushback to that adversity and tied things up at 3-3 in the second period.

Then one of those lazy, lackadaisical defensive efforts kicked in where Ian Cole looked like he was trying to block a shot and wasn’t covering anyone in particular and it resulted in a wide-open goal against.

It turned out to be the game-winning goal as the Avs technically played in the third period for it would be inaccurate to say they were physically not present. But physically there was all the showing up they did in the third.

They had three PP opportunities throughout and did nothing with them, continuing to walk back the very temporary feelings gained last week when that unit played with a sense of urgency and accomplished the whole scoring goals thing.

On the other side, the PK once again gave up a goal immediately off the initial faceoff, making that three times in the last week or so that it’s happened. It’s a weird trend that obviously needs to stop but is also one tied to the struggles of Philipp Grubauer, who did nothing tonight to quell the calls for Pavel Francouz to take his job.

Grubauer gave up four goals on 28 shots and was bailed out on a fifth goal by a split-second offside call to keep another highlight of Grubauer failing to see the puck as it went by him from being splashed across the internet.

You can’t make a cogent argument all four goals against were solely on Grubauer as the first was a deflection with nobody helping and the fourth was shot into an empty net because of a terrible defensive breakdown. But those second and third goals, those are up for debate in my opinion.

And while I’m sure one of our goalie guys will come in and tell me the puck tracking wasn’t the problem or whatever other blame I assign isn’t true, the reality is that Grubauer is getting beat cleanly on shots from the outside and it’s happening every night.

Colorado’s recipe for success is, like all team’s, pretty basic in reality. They want to score first, score second, score third, and kick it into cruise control while maybe scoring two or three more times because they like group hugs.

Their recent recipe has included getting leads, losing them, losing the special teams battle every night, and getting worse goaltending than the other team.

That’s a recipe for disaster…and that’s a pretty good word for what tonight was.

GAME TAKEAWAYS

• These special teams are broken. The PP I mostly wave off. The team has too much offensive talent to be this inept but that unit ebbs and flows super hard throughout a season and that it’s been almost all ebb up to this point makes me wonder if it means there’s a crazy hot streak in store for sometime in the season’s second half. Or if nothing at all happens. Ray Bennett’s job could just depend on that answer. The PK, however, isn’t even competitive most of the time. Even when it’s successful, it’s surviving, not thriving. The only thing about the PK you feel good about is it seems to score about as much as the PP does these days (that’s not even close to true, but you get it).
• Colorado has proven they are a very solid team at even strength. Few teams generate as many attempts and chances as they do at 5v5 and with their skill dotted around the lineup, they have finishing ability other teams lack. That’s great. But when you’re regularly losing the special teams battle and having to not only win every night at 5v5, but win by multiple goals to cover the failures of special teams, it creates a very difficult hill to climb. As talented as the Avs are, that’s just not how a team is going to find their way to victory very often.
• The Avs are now the only team in the NHL this season who has not won a game when entering the third period trailing. Look at that versus the teams around in the standings and you’ll see an area of major improvement here. Dallas has seven, Winnipeg has five, and St. Louis has four. Those are all games in which those teams were on the verge of being closed out but weren’t. One of those Dallas wins was their last matchup against the Avs, by the way. Colorado is 0-10-1 when trailing after two periods. Upside: 11 out of 44 games in that situation is excellent. Downside: You’re going to have to overcome some leads in order to win a Stanley Cup. It’s just inevitably part of the process.
• Avs might have a real problem on their hands right now with Grubauer. He’s just been so mediocre on the whole this season and almost all of his numbers are propped up by a very strong start. Since his injury issues, he just hasn’t been the same. I don’t know if something is lingering and I won’t speculate beyond tying his dip in play to the injuries timeline-wise but this is a troubling trend. They need him to figure it out and they want him to be the starter so they’re going to ride him through some of these struggles but losses like the one tonight are a result of that. The schedule gets very home-heavy for Colorado now so the Avs badly need Grubi to get back to brick wall status.
• Speaking of injuries, Joonas Donskoi did not finish the game after getting hit in the head on a big hit in the neutral zone by Ryan Lindgren. Donskoi was clearly shaken up and left with a head injury. There was no postgame update on his status.
• Nazem Kadri earned a whole lot of respect from Avs fans tonight when he responded to Lindgren’s fight by chasing him down and engaging in a spirited session of face-punching with him. It was a one-sided affair, too, as Kadri badly bloodied Lindgren’s face and Lindgren also failed to return to the contest. Kadri eventually did after the 17 minutes in penalties he accrued sticking up for his potentially-concussed teammate expired. The Avs will have a day off tomorrow before returning to practice on Thursday in the lead-up to their Friday night tilt against Sidney Crosby’s MASH unit Pittsburgh Penguins.