Edmonton, Alberta – After nearly 18 months off from NHL play, the Avalanche looked like a team playing the final game of a six-game road trip.
For reasons the Avs will no doubt spend the next 48 hours trying to sort out, they gave a self-described flat effort Wednesday night in their 2005-06 season opener, losing 4-3 to the Edmonton Oilers at Rexall Place.
“We didn’t get our legs going all night,” Avalanche captain Joe Sakic said. “They were all over us from the get-go. They deserved to win.”
The Avs seemed a step behind the Oilers, who outshot Colorado 31-17 and had far better scoring chances throughout.
“It was like we were skating with two feet in the sand,” Avalanche newcomer Patrice Brisebois said. “We didn’t play our game tonight. We want more shots and to create more things offensively.”
As badly as they played at times, the Avs nearly got at least a point. Brisebois tied the game 3-3 with 7 minutes, 20 seconds left with a one-time slap shot past Oilers goalie Ty Conklin. But the Avs’ main deficiency on the night – taking penalties – doomed them in the end.
With the Avs regrouping from a Sakic hooking penalty at 14:35, Shawn Horcoff scored his second goal of the game at 16:42. He put home a loose puck with Avs goalie David Aebischer prone in the crease, and with Sakic too far out of the play for the time he had to skate out of the penalty box and into the Avs’ end to defend an Oilers flurry.
“We didn’t match their intensity, that’s all there is to it,” Sakic said. “But we have 81 games to go.”
A poor second period put the Avs in catch-up mode entering the third. Outshot 14-2 by Edmonton, the Avs spent a lot of the period trying to kill off penalties, which sapped their chances for any sustained offensive pressure.
The key developments of the second period were a holding penalty on Brisebois at 16:11, followed by a Jarret Stoll power-play goal at 16:59.
The Avs had successfully killed three previous Oilers power plays, including a 5-on-3 disadvantage for 20 seconds. But Stoll stopped the Avs’ penalty-killing success when he ripped a one-time slap shot past Aebischer from the top of the left faceoff circle.
Aebischer was victimized by a couple of fluky goals in the first period, with the first coming 24 seconds in. Horcoff had a loose puck in the air land on his stick and swept it in before many fans had a chance to take their seats.
Three more goals would be scored in the next 8:18, with the Avalanche getting two. Brett Clark, normally a defenseman but playing on the fourth line to fill in for injured forwards, scored Colorado’s first goal of the season at 5:51. He broke down the right side and one-timed a crossing pass from Bob Boughner. It was Clark’s sixth career goal in 159 NHL games.
Ryan Smyth scored 25 seconds later, redirecting a deflected shot. The Avs’ Antti Laaksonen tied it 2-2 at 8:42, scoring a fortunate goal of his own when a shot from the side of the net deflected in.
Aebischer made several excellent saves to keep it 2-2 before Stoll’s tiebreaker. Conklin had to do next to nothing at the other end.
“We’ve got to get better off that performance tonight,” said Avs coach Joel Quenneville, coaching his first game with Colorado. “They were much quicker on all pucks. It’s the first time we’ve played a game at that speed in a long time, and hopefully we’ll gain some momentum knowing that that’s how the pace of the game has got to be played.
“We want to play up-tempo with some speed in our game, but we were on the receiving end tonight.”
Staff writer Adrian Dater can be reached at 303-820-5454 or adater@denverpost.com.
