Takeaways from Avalanche loss to Islanders

Like a dead skunk in the middle of the road, stinkin’ to high heaven, so lies the Avalanche penalty kill right now. You don’t need to search any more past Loudon Wainright’s classic 1970s tune for the right metaphor for the Avs’ PK, which was by far the most guilty party of Colorado’s desultory 4-1 loss at home Monday night to the New York Islanders.

If the Avs aren’t getting scored on the normal way on the PK, they’re serving up heaping platters of golden chances on their own power play. An Islanders’ PP unit that was 2-for-34 coming in vivisected the Avs with round-the-horn passing and easy goals in front, and that was enough to beat an Avs team that seemed to mostly just shrug their way through this thing.

So much for building a bigger cushion against playoff chasers, against a team they should beat at home. The Avs are going the wrong way again, folks. That 6-4 win over Dallas the other night is looking more and more like a quick splash of concealer on a face that’s breaking out in hives, or something like that.

The Avs are now 1-3-1 in the last five games. Sure, teams are going to go through tough patches, but what’s becoming more of a bigger concern is the goaltending – with Semyon Varlamov having another spotty outing – and a PK unit that is flat out costing them games.

“It looks to me like we’re not as quick as we were earlier,” Jared Bednar said, when I asked him about the PK afterward. “We had some problems with clears for a while, but that wasn’t the problem tonight. We’re not blocking enough shots either. We’re not getting in the shooting lanes enough. We’re not reading (one-timers) early enough. We gotta get better there, for sure. And, we’re taking too many penalties.”

An Avs PK unit that was in the top 10 of the league for a good chunk of the season is now in the bottom third. They were 20th in the league entering the game, at 78.1 percent. That number will sink even lower now. This team needs some kind of a jolt to wake up again. Not sure what it is, but for starters: stop having complete meltdowns on special teams.

“It’s something we have to address,” defenseman Ian Cole told BSN Denver. “It’s something we had success with early on this season, but it’s slipping now and we’ve got to make adjustments.”

OTHER OBSERVATIONS/NOTES

• Nathan MacKinnon is starting to drive everyone a little crazy with his overpassing. No better example than on a 2-on-1 in the second period where he had a clean lane to shoot the puck off the forehand and elected to pass at the last moment, across to Gabe Landeskog. Johnny Boychuk broke up the pass, and that was that. Then again, in shooting areas on a four-minute power play in the second, he passed into the middle. One of them – a cross to J.T. Compher – probably should have been put in the back of the net. But enough already with the unselfishness. A guy like MacKinnon has to shoot more. He did shoot the puck plenty in the first period, but that missed 2-on-1 and flat PP for him and the team in the second were killers.
• Turnovers at the opposing blue line on the power play have got to stop happening with as much frequency, especially with Tyson Barrie. There was almost another shorty on that double-minor in the second to Joshua Ho-Sang, after Barrie coughed one up and was too gassed to keep up. It should have been a goal, as Varly allowed a big rebound
• The Islanders played with only five D-men for the final 22:34 of regulation, after Thomas Hickey hurt himself with a missed hit attempt on Tyson Jost.
• On the kneeing penalty Ian Cole took on the Islanders’ Brock Nelson late in the second: Yeah, that’s probably a suspension. Cole seemed to stick out the knee a little too much and didn’t alter his course on Nelson. Plus, Nelson was hurt on the hit – always a factor in suspensions. Cole was suspended three games in 2012 while with St. Louis for a hit to the head, and I think that’s his only other item on the rap sheet.
• I asked Cole if he’s worried about getting suspended: “That’s not my call. It’s one of those things that happens quick. You try to get the body, he jumps out of the way. It happens, you know? It’s happened to me, it’s going to happen again. It’s unfortunate. You never want to hurt anybody, but you’re also trying to play a hard game too.”
• The Avs took another dumb penalty or two, a pretty common occurrence of late. A too-many-men violation at 9:15 of the second stalled what had been some building momentum, after Landeskog’s goal that made it 2-1. Everybody saw it coming, too – except the players coming on and off the bench. That’s the kind of sloppiness you can’t have and expect to win.
• The news continues to seem very good on Conor Timmins. He skated Monday morning with the rest of the team, albeit in that red noncontact jersey. If all keeps staying good, you have to think he’ll finally get a green light to take contact and join the Colorado Eagles at some point reasonably soon.
• It can’t be seen as anything less than another disappointment for A.J. Greer, the fact he was sent back to the Eagles Sunday and Sheldon Dries took his place. You only get so many chances to impress at this level before you get labeled a career minor-leaguer. I think Greer will get another honest chance or two still with the Avs, but getting sent back so fast after his own call-up can’t be good.
• Alexander Kerfoot missed another game with that upper-body injury. I think he might be back the next game, but as always, will need to wait for the official word.
• Mikko Rantanen on the game: “I think we had too many turnovers. Our execution wasn’t good. We missed some easy passes and some easy shots. It’s 82 games, though, and some games it’s just not going to be clicking. We just have to move forward.”
• Tyson Barrie on the special teams: “It’s tough to say, you’re not going to get three every night. Would have been nice tonight because that would have brought us back in the game, but we had big opportunities too. We had the four-minute power play and then a couple in the third so, disappointing we weren’t able to do it but you got to turn the page, we’ve got a couple more big home games here coming up.”