Spooky season comes a night early as Avs give away two points to Panthers

There are a few games every year where you just give away the game.

In their 12th game of the season, the Avs finally had one of those nights. They pulled a point but in the locker room after their 4-3 overtime loss to the Florida Panthers, it was the one that got away they couldn’t stop thinking about.

“Yeah, it’s tough,” Matt Nieto said. “We’ve got a two-goal lead with six minutes, in a really good spot at home. Those are ones we have to get away with two points there.”

That two-goal lead, at 3-1, was built on the back of two goals from Colorado’s new-look top line as Joonas Donskoi and Nathan MacKinnon each scored. Nieto got the ball rolling on the scoring in the first period with his third goal of the season, continuing the success Colorado’s fourth line (now third, I guess?) has had through the first dozen games.

“All three of us play a hard-nosed game,” Nieto said. “Simple, but we all can make plays when they’re there. Nice to get on the board tonight. Unfortunately, it doesn’t mean anything now.”

I reminded him they still got a point but it was obvious that was no solace as he added, “We still got a point but to lose up two goals with six minutes to go? That’s not good.”

The game took a significant turn of events when Nikita Zadorov was penalized for slashing, roughing, and then given a 10-minute misconduct. All of this came after Zadorov had laid a huge hit on Jayce Hawryluk, who left the game with an apparent injury.

The Panthers wanted a piece of Zadorov and they gave him plenty of attention on his next shift, taking a whack or two at him before Zadorov retaliated. Because it’s how it works in sports, Zadorov’s retaliation (which came several seconds later) was called and it ended up being a game-changing sequence of events.

Florida scored just a few seconds into the ensuing power play when Aleksander Barkov tipped a puck in front that ping-ponged through Grubauer’s gear and squeaked in to make it 3-2.

“I thought we’ve done a good job,” Nieto said of the PK up to that point. “At the end of the day they’ve got five guys and we have four. One guy is going to be open. Teams are going to get their looks and unfortunately, they got a good look and capitalized.”

With the extra attacker on in the final two minutes, Jonathan Huberdeau tied the game with just 90 seconds remaining.

“Our kill has to finish,” Nieto said of the sequences. “The six on five at the end wasn’t pretty either. We’ve just got to find ways to stick together and get through it.”

Huberdeau won the game just 29 seconds into the overtime session as it looked like Colorado was about to clear the zone with an odd-man rush but Barkov poked the puck to Huberdeau and he beat Grubauer’s poke check attempt and slipped it five-hole for the game-winning goal.

With the loss, the Avs drop to 8-2-2 on the season and are 0-0-1 while playing without both Mikko Rantanen and Gabe Landeskog.

In a position to win without two-thirds of their top line, the Avs fell apart right at the end.

Head coach Jared Bednar said following the game he could live with his team blowing just one of every 12 games, even though he’d prefer to blow none of them.

While that’s a positive big-picture perspective, it doesn’t take the sting out of a disappointing overall night in Denver.

GAME TAKEAWAYS

• Ian Cole had some very nice moments in the neutral zone tonight, jumping into the play and breaking up multiple Florida zone entries and pushing the puck the other way. He still took two penalties and that will overshadow the rest of his night but there were some very positive moments from him tonight.
• I thought Philipp Grubauer was having an excellent night through two periods. There were multiple sequences in the second period where he read the play and showed the kind of explosive lateral movement I haven’t noticed much from him in the past. He was playing with a ton of confidence before things came crashing down in the third. You knew his dominant play in third periods was going to take a hit eventually but that Barkov goal was crazy in slow motion. It hits Grubauer’s stick, bounces up into his pads, then down in between his legs and as he closes his legs he accidentally kicks the puck into his own net. That’s brutal puck luck.
• Tyson Jost is one of Colorado’s players to watch every night because he has so much to prove this year but tonight wasn’t one of his better efforts. There were a few nice moments, like the pass to Burakovsky out in front for a scoring chance that ended up drawing a penalty. One thing I’d like to see from Jost is for him to eliminate the extra stickhandling he does right before he shoots. He does it a lot and it ends up in a lot of his attempts getting deflected by the defender’s stick. You notice the goals he scored he just one-touched and fired away. As cerebral a player as Jost is, simpler has proven more effective for him. I’ll keep an eye more on this habit of his to see if this is confirmation bias or something he actually does too much.
• Vladislav Kamenev got back into a game and had some nice moments. He played just under ten minutes in total and it was a decent effort from him. There were clearly some adjustments to the speed as he knocked off a little rust but he ended up with three shots on goal, a reminder that this is a guy who is not shy about putting pucks towards the net. I found it overall encouraging performance.
• Valeri Nichushkin just completed his 81st consecutive NHL game without a goal. It sure wasn’t without some moments, though. He had two breakaway opportunities (one more of a mini breakaway, the other clear-cut) and a very good scoring chance right before the third-period buzzer. It was the kind of performance where you really start to wonder if this guy will ever score again in the NHL. I don’t believe in jinxes but something in the universe is clearly keeping that guy from putting a puck in the net. I’m not even sure the old NHL Hitz play where one guy decks the goalie and the other guy shoots it into the empty net would work for Nichushkin right now. His sticks might need an exorcism.
• On the exact opposite side of that coin, Nathan MacKinnon scored in his 12th straight game to start the season. He had a goal and an assist, both coming from that little wrist shot high in the offensive zone that has worked so many times for him this year. It’s amazing when you continue to see this guy find a way to get points and then a guy like Nichushkin struggles to get even one. I just find the contrast incredible is all.