"We’re shooting ourselves in the foot..." Nathan MacKinnon continues to impress, but Avs frustrate themselves with another loss

The Colorado Avalanche (16-9-2) returned to Ball Arena for the third game of their homestand.

They received more reinforcements in the way of Val Nichushkin who returned to the lineup tonight after missing two games due to illness.

As a result, the lines received more remixing. Nichushkin joined the second line made up of Mikko Rantanen at center and Tomas Tatar on wing.

Ryan Johansen moved to the fourth line with Kurtis MacDermid and Andrew Cogliano.

Caleb Jones and Fredrik Olofsson got the night off, and Ivan Prosvetov earned his fifth start.

Bednar really wanted to get Rantanen going at center, so Olofsson had to come out of the lineup.

The Philadelphia Flyers surprised the league with a solid start that has continued into December despite being in a rebuild. They’re second in the Metropolitan Division and have strung together great games on the road (9-4-1). Tonight was no different and they took the win 5-2 over the Avs.

The score doesn’t quite tell the whole story.

The first period started a little sloppy for both teams, but Colorado did a lot of great things, especially in response to the disappointment from the Jets game.

The Avs generated some great shifts in the Flyers’ end, got some good touches, extended possession, and created dangerous chances.

At 10:52, they were awarded their first powerplay opportunity. It was one of the best powerplays they’ve had in a moment: seven attempts, and four shots on net that were just nearly stopped.

Rantanen played a special first period. You could tell he was hungry to find the back of the net, and he handled the responsibilities down the middle well. He managed three shots on net inside the first period.

Even though the experiment at center didn’t last the entire game, it wasn’t because he didn’t perform. The line on the whole wasn’t creating enough to Bednar’s liking, and he limited Rantanen’s time at center to about six minutes on the night – he spent the rest of the night at wing.

Later in the period, the play started innocuously enough. Sam Malinski made a nice stretch pass to Jonathan Drouin and both went deep in the Flyers’ zone. Drouin struggled to settle the puck along the boards and Malinski chased it behind the net, but the Flyers broke out the puck.

Sean Couturier waited near the defensive blueline to skate in with it all alone. Ryan Johansen made a smart defensive play to challenge him, but Couturier found Travis Konecny alone in the slot.

Konecny was inside Jack Johnson and Malinski, so he wristed the puck past Prosvetov with ease.

A minute later, Devon Toews held the puck behind the net and fed Manson at the half-wall.

Manson passed to MacKinnon at center ice and MacKinnon skated his way around Konecny and Rasmus Ristolainen to float the puck on net – it looked like Egor Zamula’s stick ensured it went in.

With the clock winding down, it was a great effort to level the game before exiting the first.

Midway through the second period, at one end Ross Colton attempted to cleanup a rebound but Morgan Frost took it away.

The Flyers transitioned up ice. Bobby Brink angled the puck up ice and Owen Tippett beat Manson to take the puck to the net. Prosvetov made the initial save, but Tippett whacked the rebound in.

Shortly after, Bowen Byram struggled to protect the puck along the boards and Konecny tied him up enough for Frost to take the puck away. With the help of Tippett and Frost in a behind the net play, Travis Sanheim was set up to take the shot from the right circle. He beat Prosvetov farside.

A minute later, Johansen won the faceoff and Manson fired a quick shot from distance past Carter Hart to bring the Avs back within one.

Colorado had to kill a penalty, but Logan O’Connor and Nichushkin made the Flyers sweat with shorthanded chances of their own, and Miles Wood got a backhand on net.

They received another powerplay chance near the end of the period, but it was nothing of note compared to their first.

The Flyers put together a better second period than their first, so things were a little more level between the two groups. The Flyers obviously had the scoring advantage, so the Avs couldn’t afford to let up even a little.

Colorado did make a push in the third, but it didn’t last.

“In the third we get buzzing and trying to push from behind in the 3-2 game, and then it looked to me like trying to make something out of nothing too many times. We have three or four turnovers at the blueline that led to breakaways,” said Bednar.

“Despite the score in the game, I thought Prosvetov played hard for us,” Bednar added. “We hang him out, he’s got us in the third – I felt that’s the biggest thing that bothered me is: we’re finding the rhythm of our game for ten-minute stretches, and then we’re shooting ourselves in the foot.”

Prosvetov came up with a big kick save on the breakaway around the twelve minute mark.

But shortly after, MacKinnon used his stick too aggressively on the backcheck to stop Konecny on a different breakaway and gave the Flyers a penalty shot. Prosvetov almost had the save, but it trickled past him.

Less than a minute later, the Flyers capitalized on the sheer momentum of the penalty shot.

Sanheim rushed into the Avs’ end and crashed the net, making the pass back to Brink at the last second. Brink settled the puck and waited to pass the puck to Farabee. Farabee banged it in from the side.

“You have to give them credit, they earned some of those,” Bednar added. “Our decisions on some of the scoring chances against and goals against, right now, it’s just not good. So we go do it, and do it, and do it. I don’t know if we’re expecting more of a reward for our hard work, but it’s not coming easy. We try to make something out of nothing and it’s killing us. Killed us the last game and killed us this game.”

Andrew Cogliano corroborated the self-inflicted wounds.

“I think we need to understand sometimes a little bit of who we are. Sometimes plays aren’t to be had at the bluelines and turnovers sometimes create momentum going the other way. They might not score off the first chance, but they score off the second or third one,” he started.

“We have some of the best players in the world in this room and that’s a positive, but I think a lot of other guys including myself need to adopt a little bit of a mindset of: chip away, forecheck momentum, (and) break teams down. That way you’re gonna be in games all the time and you push it over near the end… We gave way too many open looks on rush chances and bad plays with the puck accumulate over time.”

The shots finished 34-38 Avs, but they allowed 14. Even though they created 13 of their own, they allowed too many dangerous chances.

They’re not usually so reckless. After the Jets game, Bednar said that he wanted to see more contributions from the whole team. Fourteen skaters contributed to the shot share and Rantanen finished with a team-high six.

Despite the obvious effort to impact the game in that way, the desperation may have caused them to overcomplicate things in the offensive zone by being too risky.

Their hearts are in the right place, but they need to channel it into something a little more responsible.

They have two more chances to close out the homestand and face Calgary on Monday.