Muted Avalanche effort results in another on-ice embarrassment

LAS VEGAS – There’s something unique about the silence of a locker room of players who are just minutes removed from getting embarrassed 7-0. It’s not the peaceful silence of the winter’s first snowstorm or the hopeful silence of a star-gazing dreamer pondering their future. It’s more of an angry silence, occasionally penetrated by sounds of velcro being ripped off as those players shed their gear in preparation for heading back home.

That silence was prevalent Friday afternoon after the Colorado Avalanche felt the sting of another blowout. Only this one came at the hands of the expansion Vegas Golden Knights. As some players leaned back in their lockers with thousand-yard stares plastered across their faces, others were more eager to hit the showers and begin literally washing the nightmare away.

Captain Gabe Landeskog took neither of those options, as he was tasked with trying to explain the extraordinary on-ice failure witnessed by the 17,000-plus people in attendance at T-Mobile Arena.

“We get out of the first period 0-0 and that’s a good spot to be in on the road,” Landeskog said. “The first five minutes weren’t very sharp and we weren’t skating the way we wanted to but we get a big penalty kill and a power play that gives us momentum and all of a sudden we’re going.”

The going for Colorado amounted to building an impressive shot lead, 18-7, though none found a way to beat goaltender Oscar Dansk. The Avalanche had the momentum and were feeling good until a Nail Yakupov pass was intercepted by Vegas forward David Perron, who took the puck the length of the ice and beat netminder Semyon Varlamov on a breakaway to put his team up 1-0.

The rest of the Avs’ stay in Vegas went like that of a 3 a.m. karaoke crooner at a chintzy bar off the strip.

A one-goal lead controversially turned into two as Oscar Lindberg capitalized on shoddy puck management by Colorado defenseman Chris Bigras and beat Varlamov on a soft upstairs backhander. The Avalanche challenged the play for being offside but after a lengthy review, it was determined it was not offside because Sven Andrighetto had propelled the puck into the zone Lindberg had already entered, therefore negating the offside designation. The goal stood and Colorado was assessed a two-minute minor for the failed challenge.

“It sucks,” Landeskog said after a long pause. “I don’t know what the offside rule is anymore, to be honest with you. No idea. Either way, it’s 2-0 at that point and we’ve got to be able to find a way to fight through that.”

It was the second time in a week the Avalanche has been on the wrong end of a questionable on-ice decision by officials and it responded like a team that’s very familiar with the ending of that particular movie. They packed it in emotionally and waited for the final buzzer to come. Vegas had other ideas as they continued exploiting Colorado’s apathy to the tune of a four-goal second period and three-goal third, giving them a touchdown on Nevada Day.

“The second, instead of us going on the power play for four minutes on a high-sticking call, they get a breakaway and they go up 1-0,” Landeskog explained. “Then there’s some mistakes that snowball into 3-0, 4-0 and things like that. It just gets out of hand at the end and our bench gets short. Ultimately, we know it’s not good enough. We’ve all got better. We know as a group that even though the scoreboard was 7-0, we are better than that. I think it’s a bit of a skewed result versus how we felt out there on the ice and how things looked.”

The third period saw a game out of reach turn into a physical tone-setting for future matchups, something all too common in the NHL. With Gabriel Bourque already lost in the first period due to injury, A.J. Greer received a game misconduct along with two roughing penalties when he got into a fracas with Pierre-Edouard Bellemare that was deemed not technically a fight.

Later in the third, Vegas defenseman Brayden McNabb furthered his reputation as a player with no reservations about crossing the line, as he went high on Avalanche forward Alexander Kerfoot, resulting in Kerfoot leaving the game. No penalty was called until Nathan MacKinnon decided enough was enough and jumped McNabb, resulting in a very short fight that put both players in the penalty box for fighting. MacKinnon wasn’t the only Colorado player unhappy with the hit.

“Anybody that watched the game and sees the hit, it’s not a pretty hit,” Landeskog said. “He leaves his feet and contact to the head right away. [MacKinnon] does a great job of stepping in right away and that’s what this group is about. We’ve got each other’s backs and I’m just glad [Kerfoot] is all right.”

Kerfoot’s status, along with Bourque’s, remains unclear as the team heads home to take on the Chicago Blackhawks Saturday night at the Pepsi Center. What is clear, however, is Colorado’s desire to get back on the ice and move past today’s fiasco.

“Ultimately, it’s a loss and those always sting, especially this way,” an agitated Landeskog said. “We’re pissed off but we view this as a chance to go home tomorrow and play against a great Blackhawks team and a division opponent. We’re going to get recharged here and throw this one out the window.”

As the players continue to shout from the mountaintops to anybody who will listen, this is not last year’s team and they insist they will respond with a much better performance.

“Obviously, there’s things that snowballed away from us and there’s some outside decisions made out there we can’t control,” Landeskog said. “We went through this last year, a few tough losses, but we’ve talked about it and we’re a different group this year. It’s going to be completely different and we’re going to come back tomorrow and bounce back.”

Saying the right things has never been the problem for this group. Backing it up and applying meaning to their words with positive action has been too rarely seen from this core. If they want people to believe they aren’t last year’s 48-point embarrassment, it’s time they start proving it.

On the ice.