If the Avalanche’s season were illustrated in a stock market-style graph, it would look even crazier than the real-life Wall Street of the last few weeks.
A season of streaks continued Thursday night for the Avs, who dropped their fifth straight game, 3-1 to the Minnesota Wild at the Pepsi Center. Playing without captain Joe Sakic, the Avs fell behind early and, despite a strong second half of the game, were frustrated by the excellent goaltending by the Wild’s Niklas Backstrom.
Avs coach Tony Granato was not pleased with his team’s lack of effort in the first 10 minutes.
“We’ve got to be ready for the start of the game. We have to dictate how the game is going to be played,” Granato said. “We can’t go around seeing how the game is going to be played. We have to skate; we have to finish checks. We have to get a flow and a rhythm when the game is started — early. We do that, and we do that consistently, it’s a lot easier to win games.”
Indeed, one of the Avs’ real problem areas this season has been slow starts, and it was certainly that way again. In just three of Colorado’s 13 games has the team scored first, and the Wild burned only 3:35 taking a 1-0 lead on Pierre-Marc Bouchard’s second goal of the season.
A little more than four minutes later, it was 2-0 Minnesota on Benoit Pouliot’s power-play goal. Avs netminder Peter Budaj allowed a juicy rebound from Marek Zidlicky’s fairly routine-looking slap shot from the point, and Pouliot tapped it in unchecked in the right crease. The Avs had a whopping shot advantage the rest of the game, but Backstrom made the saves, except for a Darcy Tucker score at 12:18 of the second period.
“I don’t know what to say,” Avs defender Ruslan Salei said. “We’ve got to come out ready to play, especially in our building. We can’t spot a team a couple of goals before we start working. We’ve just got to bear down. It’s never fun, and it’s frustrating losing like this. But we have to go to work, try to stay positive and learn from your mistakes, and just be better.”
Former Av Andrew Brunette made it 3-0 at 9:56 of the second, putting in a shot from in close after an Antti Miettinen setup. It appeared hopeless at that point, the way the Avs were playing, but they played a spirited final 10 minutes of the second and could have been tied with a little more fortune.
After Tucker’s goal, Ben Guite had a wonderful chance a couple of minutes later.
Ian Laperriere set up Guite with a great backhand pass, with Guite bearing in alone on the left side, but Backstrom robbed Guite with a sliding pad stop. The Avs pressed hard in the final minutes of the period, but Backstrom was too tough, and it stayed 3-1 entering the third.
“I tried to go 5-hole on him, but in hindsight I would have loved to have taken a little more time and gone up top,” Guite said. “I don’t think anybody in this locker room is used to this kind of losing. We’re a lot better team than this, but we’ve got to understand we’ve got to play the right way.”
Adrian Dater: 303-954-1360 or adater@denverpost.com
Avs Recap
Three stars
1. Niklas Backstrom.
Wild goalie stopped 35-of-36 shots for the win.
2. Marek Zidlicky.
Wild defender had two assists.
3. T.J. Hensick.
Avs center had an assist in his first game of the season.
What you might have missed
Despite a 5-8 start, it is not the Avalanche’s worst record after 13 games in its history. The 1998-99 team was 4-8-1.
Up next
Nashville, Saturday at 7 p.m. at the Pepsi Center
Adrian Dater, The Denver Post
