It’s going to be hard to win games when the increasingly shorthanded Colorado Avalanche play well at the start of this season. It is impossible when the Avs play the way they did Monday night.
Two losses to open the 2024-25 campaign could mostly be explained away by a pair of rough goaltending performances. This one was on everyone.
The New York Islanders scored three unassisted goals — all coming directly after turnovers from Colorado’s best healthy players — en route to a 6-2 victory at Ball Arena in Patrick Roy’s return to Denver as the visiting team’s head coach.
“There’s no excuses,” Avs coach Jared Bednar said. “I didn’t like our game tonight. Top to bottom, it was terrible.”
Devon Toews became the latest key player to join the infirmary. He missed the game with a lower-body injury. Jonathan Drouin (upper body) missed his second straight game, joining the three forwards (Artturi Lehkonen, Valeri Nichuhskin and Gabe Landeskog) who are all out until at least November.
That’s more than $27 million in players not available, but the other top players on this team did not have a good night and the Avs are now 0-3 to start the season.
“Three of their six goals, or four of the six, were directly my fault,” Avs defenseman Cale Makar said. “That’s just how it goes. Some really stupid, childish mistakes and those are things you’ve got to learn from. I’ve got to be better for the guys, and I think a lot of that one is on me.”
Colorado did start this game well. The Avs dominated the opening minutes, which included Calum Ritchie’s first NHL goal 61 seconds in. Ritchie was wide-open at the far post and Josh Manson found him for a quick 1-0 lead.
There were a few strong shifts after that, but that was the high-water mark. The Islanders, long notorious for their patient, structured style of play, clogged the ice and waited to capitalize on the Avalanche’s mistakes.
And there were plenty.
After the Islanders evened the score when Anders Lee squeezed the rebound of his wraparound between Alexandar Georgiev and the near post at 5:33 of the first, the next 24-plus minutes were the worst of the season so far from the Colorado players in front of their goaltender.
Kyle Palmieri reached up and intercepted Manson’s dump-in attempt at the New York blue line, then went in alone on Georgiev. The goaltender dove for a poke-check and got the puck, but it went off Palmieri’s skate and he was able to collect it for an easy one into the open net at 18:13 of the first and a 2-1 lead.
Colorado’s new-look top line with Ross Colton next to Nathan MacKinnon and Mikko Rantanen coughed up the puck multiple times during a shift in the second period and it led to a Brock Nelson goal at 8:25. When the Avs finally had their first power play of the game, even that phase of the game was a mess.
Avs coach Jared Bednar pulled the top unit off the ice after a shorthanded chance allowed 20 seconds into the extra-man opportunity. When they got back out there, Cale Makar turned the puck over and Nelson scored unassisted again at 11:14 to make it a 4-1 advantage for the visiting side.
New York Islanders goaltender Ilya Sorokin, front, misses a shot by Colorado Avalanche center Calum Ritchie for a goal in the first period of an NHL hockey game on Monday, Oct. 14, 2024, in Denver. (AP Photo/David Zalubowski)
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Casey Mittelstadt did score shortly after a power play ended 39 seconds into the third period, his third tally in as many games. Then Anthony Duclair found a rebound in front with Makar chasing him and re-established the three-goal advantage at 6:48 of the period.
“It’s harder to turn the page because of the way we played,” Bednar said. “There’s a lot in both (of the first two losses) that I liked. Like, a significant amount. And tonight, I’ll have to go through it with a fine-toothed comb to find something I liked.”
Georgiev was better in this game than the first two, but he was far from his expected level. And the parts of Colorado’s game that were actually pretty good against Vegas and Columbus took a big step backward.
The missing players are obviously part of the problem. But whether it’s been the goaltending or the mistakes, the Avs just aren’t giving themselves much of a chance to win right now, regardless of who is in the lineup.
“Obviously, you don’t want it to be right at the start coming off camp, but at the same, when we won (in 2022), the last two years, we’ve gone through stints (like this),” Makar said. “The world seems like it is falling on top of you, but at the end of the day, you’re going to find a way out of it.
“We definitely can’t get down on ourselves. We just have to win the next one. That’s all we’re focused on.”
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