Takeaways from Colorado's 4-3 preseason loss to Minnesota

It hasn’t quite been the preseason the Avalanche were hoping for in terms of results as they lost their third straight to open their preseason schedule.

A 4-3 loss to the Minnesota Wild today in Minneapolis was another of those classic battles between roster disparity as the home team iced a mostly-NHL lineup and the Avalanche sent a mixture of veteran and young depth players.

The Wild got on the board first when Mark Alt failed to clear the zone and ultimately Matt Dumba blasted one past Pavel Francouz for the lead.

It was the only goal of the first period.

Colorado tied the game early in the second when Wild goaltender Devan Dubnyk chose his own adventure in playing the puck and it didn’t work out in his favor when Shane Bowers knocked his clearing attempt down. Bowers found Ty Lewis, who found the back of the net while Dubnyk was still trying to find the reason for him actin a fool.

The tie lasted a mere minutes before Dumba again beat Francouz but the puck was on the doorstep and Jason Zucker banged it home to reclaim the lead at 2-1.

The Wild would stretch the lead to 3-1 when Kevin Connauton was caught on a bad pinch and Francouz gave up a bit of a soft goal.

A hard-working shift from A.J. Greer saw him win a board battle, throw the puck on net and immediately go battle for positioning in front with Brad Hunt. Greer won that battle and dumped Hunt onto the ice just as a an Renouf shot was hitting Dubnyk.

Jayson Megna took advantage of the space cleared by Greer’s effort and popped home the rebound to make it 3-2 going into the third period.

An absolutely lethargic Avalanche power play helped create the the game-winning goal for the Wild when J.T. Compher inexplicably fired the puck into traffic just as the power play was ending. The Wild scooped it up and found Mats Zuccarello breaking in alone and he beat Francouz to make it 4-2.

The Avalanche weren’t quite done, however, as they managed to make it interesting late.

Conor Timmins continued his strong preseason when he walked around human pylon Marcus Foligno and beat Dubnyk with a snipe, bringing it to a one-goal game at 4-3.

The Avalanche pulled Francouz and continued their futility with more men on the ice as they couldn’t find the equalizer and fell 4-3 and are now 0-3 on the preseason.

Their next game is tomorrow at home against these same Wild, although the players will likely be quite different.

TAKEAWAYS

• Colorado finished the game 0/8 on the power play, bringing them to 0/17 in the preseason. Dating back to Game 2 of the Anaheim Rookie Faceoff, they are 0/35.
• That PP might want to get fixed pretty soon…but having Mark Alt and Kevin Connauton as the QBs of said PP might be playing a role in its struggles.
• Through two games, the only big acquisition over the summer that absolutely looks like a major whiff is Andre Burakovsky. All the others have shown flashes somewhere in their games. Burakovsky’s second game was arguably worse than his first as he was even more hesitant on the PP and when he did finally shoot, missed the net entirely and helped clear the zone. He finished with just one SOG despite over nine minutes on the PP.
• I really liked the hard-working efforts from Martin Kaut and A.J. Greer. These weren’t skillful performances as much as games by both players defined by their overall work. Greer’s boardwork and physicality helped create Colorado’s second goal. Kaut was involved in a couple of scoring chances and Dubnyk’s best save of the night was on Kaut right in front. He could easily have a couple of goals this preseason were it not for some great saves.
• Shane Bowers players his first NHL-ish game for the Avalanche picked up two assists in the process. His first was on a broken clearing attempt from Dubnyk, who vacated his net to be a dummy. His second came on the Timmins goal. I don’t know where Bowers fits into the organization’s long-term plans (somewhere, for sure) but he might be accelerating his NHL timeline with his play. He was very good in Anaheim and was a consistently sound player throughout training camp.
• Speaking of Timmins, if the Avalanche were truly basing their opening night roster on quality of play in preseason games, Timmins would be the young defenseman in line for the job, not Bowen Byram. Timmins played another very strong game today and capped it off with the very nice goal at the end. He played a team-high 23:39.
• I know everyone is excited for the future, but the weak starts to the preseason of Ryan Graves, Kevin Connauton, Mark Barberio, and Byram should probably remind folks of the importance of Erik Johnson and Ian Cole. There will be plenty of talk about him leading up to the expansion draft and his contract situation but there are still two NHL seasons worth of games that matter until that situation comes to a head. Johnson is hopeful for opening night Ian Cole might even be on track for a November debut instead of December given his progress so far. With the depth guys all struggling at the same time, Timmins and Calle Rosen look like the best players for those jobs now. Johnson and Cole should bring stability to a blueline that will certainly need it with volatile talents surrounding them.
• This was a disaster for Vladislav Kamenev. He’s fighting for a job and put maybe his worst Avalanche performance to date on the ice today. A very real disappointment.