“We’re not coming out to win hockey games”: Slow start once again dooms Avalanche

“If we want to win games, we’ve got to start strong. Right now we’re not doing that.”

That was the first thing Cale Makar said to me following Colorado’s 2-1 loss to the Dallas Stars.

It wasn’t that the Avs didn’t show up this time, like in their other two regulation losses against Anaheim and St. Louis where they never really seemed totally checked into the action.

No, tonight was a bit different in that they got down 2-0 and looked absolutely awful before something clicked and they started figuring it out.

Following Roope Hintz’s second goal of the night, a shorthanded goal at 5:39 of the second period, Dallas enjoyed a few more minutes of pushing play before the Avalanche woke up.

Colorado’s power play, which continues to have just enough success to mask an increasingly frustrating process, would have taken being stuck in neutral but ended up being an active detriment in giving up the game-winning goal when Makar hopped off the ice to change and Joonas Donskoi failed to gain the offensive zone.

This led to a breakaway for Hintz, who snapped it between Philipp Grubauer’s legs and turned out to be all the offense the Stars needed.

“It’s kind of tough to get going when, especially me on the power play, our power play is supposed to give us a lot of energy as a team,” Makar said. “When you’ve got a guy like me not executing well and not making plays it doesn’t help the team.”

Makar’s harsh self-assessment didn’t stop there.

“For me personally tonight, it was executing passes,” he said of his struggles. “It just wasn’t there, skating wasn’t there. The second goal was completely my fault. It was a bad change. You learn from it but moving forward our power play has to be a momentum swinger for us.”

That power play eventually did swing momentum for the Avs as their only goal of the night came on the man advantage. Nazem Kadri won a faceoff back to Makar, who passed it to Nathan MacKinnon and he did the rest as he beat Anton Khudobin five hole to make it 2-1 and extend MacKinnon’s point streak to 13 games.

Despite getting an assist on the play and moving into sole possession of the rookie scoring race, Makar wasn’t satisfied. Losing has that effect on this team, who is the first Avs team I’ve covered in the last five years who seems to have a true disdain for not coming out on top.

“It’s just a learning curve,” Makar said. “I don’t how much more there is to it. We know how we can play, we just have to execute.”

The Avs head to Arizona tomorrow night to take on the Coyotes on the second night of a back to back. As has been the case with their first two back to backs of the season, they are playing a rested team on the second night.

GAME TAKEAWAYS

• NikitaZadorov had the kind of game I wish we’d see more often from him. He was defending the blue line really well and when Dallas would dump and chase, he’d simply stick with his man and keep him from being a factor in the ensuing puck battle(s). This is when Zadorov is at his best defending and I hope Brett Heimlich and Nolan Pratt put together some video packages showing the difference in results when he plays that kind of steady, reliable defense.
• Colorado’s defensemen consistently made baffling puck decisions tonight. There were multiple icings when players had the puck just feet from the center line and freedom to continue moving forward. Instead, they tried to make an unlikely play and ended up icing the puck. It was a weird epidemic as several different Avalanche defenders were guilty of it tonight.
• Ian Cole had a rough go of it with the puck tonight. He threw a couple of knucklers up the middle of the ice that came right back at him.
• Ryan Graves made a timely re-entry into the Avalanche lineup and made the kind of impact the Avs are looking for from him. He was aggressive in using his pterodactyl-like reach to disrupt passing and shooting lanes and wasn’t shy about firing pucks on net when he had chances. All three of his shot attempts were blocked but anything can happen when you try. He also blocked five shots for good measure.
• It was obvious after the first period the experiment with Nazem Kadri on MacKinnon’s wing wasn’t really working at 5v5 so the Avs switched it up in the second period, dropping Kadri back to 2C and moving Andre Burakovsky to MacKinnon’s wing.
• This move meant Tyson Jost slid back to the wing and there was one sequence that really stood out to me. Kadri took an offensive zone faceoff and Jost just threw his body into two Stars players who had converged on the puck. The contact from Jost separated the puck from the two players and Kadri was able to pick it up and the Avs created a legitimate offensive possession from it.
• We knew the fourth line would revert to last year’s usage when it became two healthy scratches and a guy from the AHL. But even in expecting that, Jayson Megna played just 3:29 tonight and I’m back to openly wondering what the point of this is. If the coach isn’t going to use that line, why bother? Just double-shift your best player in MacKinnon (especially when he’s a maniac like tonight) and don’t mess with having that guy around. Also, if he’s your first call-up and you don’t trust him to this level, why is he the first call-up?
• MacKinnon had 18 shot attempts tonight. 12 on net, four blocked, and two missed. That’s crazy.
• In a game they were losing for nearly 42 minutes, the Avs forward leaders in ESTOI were: MacKinnon, Kadri, Bellemare (??), Nieto (??), Donskoi, and Calvert (??) two seconds behind Donskoi. I know the Bellemare line has been solid to start the year but none of them have a 30-point season on their resume. Those may not be the guys to run hard in a game where the difference ended up being one goal.
• Of course, hindsight is always 20-20.
• Jared Bednar didn’t hold back in his postgame presser, repeatedly stating his team wasn’t prepared to play for 30 minutes and that’s why they lost. He said he wasn’t even interested in Xs and Os tonight because his team came out of the gate so unprepared to play.
• The real gem from Bednar was: “Right now, we’re just coming out to play hockey. We’re not coming out to win hockey games”