MacKinnon-less Avalanche sputter offensively in loss to Winnipeg Jets

WINNIPEG, Manitoba – All night, the game cried out for a game-breaker, a guy who can score goals on nights when offense is tougher to come by than a plus-temperature on February days in this city. Unfortunately for the Colorado Avalanche, their game breaker is home in Denver right now, convalescing with an upper-body injury.

The Avs got away without a Nathan MacKinnon in their first game without him Thursday in Edmonton. Not this time, not against a tough, defensive-minded Winnipeg Jets team that beat Colorado 3-0 at Bell MTS Place.

The Avs’ six-game road trip ended with a whimper, but don’t look to home cooking to cure any woes. The Avs only get one game back at the Pepsi Center before heading right back on the road again, most against tough Western Conference competition.

The Avs definitely struggled without their leading scorer, but they were not without real, meaningful chances to score goals in this one. Exhibit A was a 2-on-none shorthanded break-in by Matt Nieto and Gabriel Bourque in the second period. Nieto and Bourque had no defender within 20 feet of them, after Nieto grabbed a puck off the wall and caught the Jets’ defender flat-footed.

Nieto elected to give a hard, short pass across to Bourque, who missed high on the shot.

“That’s just one of those plays that, when it goes in the back of the net, it’s a good play. When it’s not, it’s not a good play,” Nieto told BSN Denver. “They’re a tough team. They have a real tight neutral zone, and we had trouble coming through the neutral zone and getting into their end. When he had sustained attack, I thought we had chances, but we could have tested their goalie a little bit more. We could have had more traffic in front of him, for sure.”

There were some other good, close-in chances at other times too, but Jets goalie Connor Hellebuyck made the saves. The Jets, who lead the Central Division, are now 19-3-2 at home.

Semyon Varlamov can’t be faulted too much for the goals that got by him, in his first start in a while. He had no chance on Patrik Laine’s early first-period goal, a one-timer from the left circle after Mikko Rantanen took a bad tripping penalty. Varlamov allowed a third-period goal, when a shot he stopped popped in the air above him. He didn’t know where the puck was. By the time he reacted, it was too late; the puck dropped in the net.

It didn’t help the Avs’ offense any in that they didn’t get their first power-play opportunity until the 15:17 mark of the third period.

The power play did next to nothing, however. The Avs just didn’t have it in this one.

“I thought we had a good first 30 minutes We had a few good opportunities to score some goals,” Jared Bednar said. “But most of them, to be honest, we didn’t even make him have to make a save. We missed the net on a couple of our best chances. We made a mistake on the penalty kill early in the game, they took a lead and then I thought the final 30 minutes of the game our execution was poor. We had passes in guys’ skates and turned the puck over and that led to them creating a bunch of good scoring chances. Eventually, they took over the game.”