Takeaways from Avs' critical loss in Dallas: No excuses

Well, at least Ottawa lost. #LoseForHughes.

That may be what it’s getting down to for Avs fans. While the Avs still have many mathematical opportunities to get themselves into the playoffs, their realistic hopes took a big turn for the worse Thursday night in a flatline, critical-game effort against the Dallas Stars.

The Avs are now the 11th best team in the Western Conference, and only the top eight go to the postseason. That’s the hard truth about this team right now. They just don’t appear to be good enough to do what they did last year, which was make it into the postseason on hustle, determination and, yeah, some talent.

For whatever reason, items 1 and 2 on that list weren’t there in this one. The Avs just got outworked and outmuscled by a bigger Dallas team, coached by former DU bench boss Jim Montgomery.

The grim math: Colorado is now five points back of Dallas for the first Western Wild Card. Dallas not only enjoys a tie-breaker advantage over the Avs (more wins) but they also still have a game in hand. And Minnesota’s startling shutout win over league-leading Tampa Bay Thursday night moved the Wild four points up on Colorado for the second Wild Card.

But, yeah, the Senators lost, and it’s looking more and more likely they will finish last in the NHL – and the Avs own Ottawa’s first-round pick. Of course, that doesn’t guarantee the Avs the first overall pick. You just have to look back to 2016-17 to know that.

Here are my takeaways and other observations from this one:

• Really, not a single Avs player – with maybe the exception of Sam Girard and Erik Johnson – played well. Every single line, every single defensive pair – they all made mistakes. Semyon Varlamov, who has allowed at least three goals in each of his last three starts, just never had much of a chance in this one.
• The worst goal of the night was the second, scored by Alexander Radulov (he scored the first goal too). Tyson Jost floated a pass from his own zone up the middle and it was easily intercepted by Tyler Seguin, who fed Radulov on the right side and he scored on a long wrister to the far post.
• On the first goal, forwards Colin Wilson and Andrew Agozzino were caught too high in the zone, allowing Radulov to skate into the middle, accept Jamie Benn’s crossing pass and one-time a shot past Varly.
• Gabe Landeskog may be out for a bit. He was hurt on a hit he took from Ben Bishop behind the net in the third period. Not much information now, but Jared Bednar told Altitude’s Lauren Gardner that “it didn’t look great.” I’m not a doctor, but that looked like it hurt the right shoulder.
• I thought the absence of Nikita Zadorov was keenly felt. While some like to bash his analytics numbers, the fact is the Avs are now 1-8-3 in games he’s been out of the lineup this year. Dallas laid some heavy hits on the Avs in the first two periods, and it seemed like nobody was there to do the same to Dallas. Zadorov would have addressed some of that.
• Why did the Avs call up Agozzino from the Eagles and not A.J. Greer, against such a physical team? It was just another in a string of puzzling roster decisions of late by management/coaching.
• Ian Cole had a particularly rough night. He just hasn’t been very good since coming back from the eye injury. He was sloppy with the puck and just too slow on a couple of the goals he was on the ice against.
• The Stars had a great game plan against the Avs’ top line, especially Nathan MacKinnon. MacK just had no time and space with the puck all night.
• It seems like Jared Bednar has lost some confidence in Jost again, based on ice time and situational play. Turnovers, like on that second goal, won’t help that.
• Losses like this wouldn’t have hurt as much had the Avs taken better care of business at home. I think back to that loss to Florida a couple weeks ago as Exhibit A. This team just fell back into bad habits of previous years; they let up when they thought things were going well, got too complacent and played to the level of their competition too many nights. I’ve harped on this a lot over the last few years, but to me it just seems like this same core of players takes their foot off the gas too much when they think the hard work has been done and they somehow deserve a breather.  You just can’t do that in this league. There just isn’t enough talent separating them from other teams to be able to do that.