“We just got outworked all over the ice”: Avs season opens with a resounding thud against St. Louis

“Too many guys not doing enough.”

That’s how Avalanche head coach finished his press conference following Colorado’s season-opening 4-1 loss to the St. Louis Blues.

To be honest, that could have been the first and only thing he said and it would’ve been completely appropriate. Coming into the season as one of the darlings of the NHL and as a favorite in the betting world to win the Stanley Cup, the Avalanche promptly handled their moment in the spotlight by laying an egg on national television.

While an Andre Burakovsky goal on their second power play early in the game gave the Avs a 1-0 lead, it was a broken play that turned into good fortune more than a result of anything Colorado did particularly well.

From that moment on, the Blues took the Avs to the proverbial woodshed and showed them exactly what a team with actual championship pedigree looks like as they outshot the Avs 18-5 and built a 2-1 lead after the first period.

“To me, we just got outworked right from the start, not ready to go, lazy habits, hoping it was going to be easier than it was and it showed,” Bednar said. “I don’t know what the shots were in the first. I think it was 18 to 5. We just got outworked all over the ice. A little bit of a bounceback in the second period but still just didn’t do enough to take control of the game.”

The Avs did mount a spirited effort in the second period but could not solve Jordan Binnington. Two more sloppy turnovers resulted in two more St. Louis goals in the third period and drove home the reality of the evening: Colorado was careless, St. Louis was competing with an edge.

After a training camp that Bednar repeatedly said he liked, he stressed this morning that he was most curious to see how his team would handle a real opponent for the first time since their Game 7 loss against Dallas last summer.

“The biggest key was going to be ‘Are we ready to compete, compete against a live opponent, someone wearing a different jersey?’ That’s the one thing, as hard as you compete in camp and as much as I liked our camp, it’s a completely different level when you get the opposition in your building where you’re playing another team.”

That other team is one that has given Colorado fits in previous years but without Vladimir Tarasenko (injury) and Mike Hoffman (visa issues), the Blues were shorthanded coming into this one. It didn’t matter as they outworked and outplayed the Avs in all of the areas that matter.

It was the kind of lethargic, sloppy effort from a team with serious aspirations that makes their Friday night rematch more important than your typical second game of the season. It’s a no-excuses kind of season in Colorado and there weren’t any following their first loss of the season.

“[St. Louis] deserved to win the game, no question,” Bednar said. “Hopefully that’s a good wake up call to our team.”

TAKEAWAYS

• Before I get to the game itself, a lot of people asked me during the game what it was like to be in the arena. Everything was kind of odd during warm-ups and pregame ceremony stuff. The first game of the year usually involves a lengthy introduction to the team and fans going ballistic for 20 minutes. None of that happened and it almost felt like being invited to an extremely exclusive exhibition game. Then the game started and the piped-in crowd noise began. I struggle with anxiety in really loud settings (ironic given my propensity for raising the volume of any room I’m in) and the noise was so loud I was nearing a panic attack less than 10 minutes into the first period. Thankfully, it got better as the game went on and by the end was more of an oddity than a legitimate problem. The seat covers looked great and the sounds of the game really stand out (when you can hear them). The bench chatter is very welcome and I think the diehards would love if they could hear more of what goes on during a game versus the fake crowd noise but that’s just my opinion. Overall, an odd experience that will take some real getting used to.
• Now, to the game. What a mess. Colorado has built a team reliant upon speed, skill, and puck management. None of those were legitimate threats tonight as Colorado’s big guns were neutralized and none of the depth guys were playing well enough to make up for it. The team as a whole was sluggish and lethargic, only playing with real energy and tempo for short spurts, mostly in the second period. The Blues are a team that force mistakes and they look to capitalize with an aggressive counterattack. That was the case tonight but the Colorado errors were a lot more unforced than a result of what the Blues were up to. The Blues are great at what they do but the Avs really leaned in hard to make life easy for them in this one. I don’t expect we’ll see too many games this year where the main takeaway is that the other team came, saw, and conquered but that’s pretty much the case tonight.
• I’m in no way putting tonight solely on him but after multiple quality camp showings, it’s time to see all that promise start to translate to real NHL games for Conor Timmins. His -4 tonight is more of an indictment of that statistic than his actual play but it was once again not a stellar outing from him. His play at camps has always stood out and we saw a very good player in the AHL last year. When do we see that guy in the NHL? With Erik Johnson and Bowen Byram waiting in the wings, Timmins likely doesn’t have the kind of leash other highly-touted young players will get because the competition around him is too good. He needs to show better sooner than later.
• On the flip side of that competitive coin, Pierre-Edouard Bellemare look outclassed by his linemates in terms of skill tonight. With Shane Bowers waiting for any opportunity to show what he can do in the NHL, Bellemare needs to step his game up. He’ll certainly get a few weeks to work through it and judging too harshly after one game is always a fool’s errand but there are talented youngsters chomping at the bit right now. With the taxi squad this year, those players pushing for NHL ice time are practicing with the NHL club every day. There’s no hiding any kind of struggles and Bellemare needs to up his game to continue to fend off the future.
• The hit Devon Toews took in the first period should be looked at by the league. I don’t think it was intentional but intent is irrelevant in what was a clear-cut headshot. Toews left the ice and cleared concussion protocol but given all we’ve learned in recent years about concussions and the possibility of latent symptoms striking after protocol, it’s best to just keep an eye on him for the next 48 hours. He came back and, to my eye, played a decent game in his Avalanche debut but I’m more concerned about his health at the moment.
• I loved Sam Girard’s game tonight until that ghastly turnover that led to the back-breaking third Blues goal. I don’t know what happened there but until that moment, he had been arguably Colorado’s best player on a night where very few were any good.
• We can talk all about depth and role players needing to step up but tonight was just a good reminder of how you win in the NHL – your best players be exactly that. With the high-flying trio of MacKinnon/Makar/Rantanen all having relatively quiet games, the Avs felt very mortal.