The Avalanche’s streak of futility is starting to look and feel like the repeat of a 2009 nightmare.
Two seasons ago, the Avalanche went 4-14-4 in its last 22 regular-season games to stumble to the worst record (32-45-5) in the Western Conference, leading to the firing of general manager Francois Giguere and coach Tony Granato, and “earning” the right to claim Matt Duchene with the third overall choice in the NHL draft. Before falling apart, the Avalanche was a decent 21-19-1 at the halfway point of that 2008-09 season.
Since Jan. 26, the current Avs team is 1-13-2 in its last 16 games. With a Tuesday road game against the Minnesota Wild next, Colorado is threatening to fall past Edmonton to the bottom of the Western Conference. Colorado has lost 5-1 to the lowly Oilers in consecutive home games — Feb. 23 and Saturday. The Avalanche was 21-15-5 at the halfway point of this season and even had a six-game winning steak in December before falling apart.
Only four players on the current active roster — Milan Hejduk, John-Michael Liles, Cody McLeod and Peter Budaj — suited up for the final game two seasons ago. Three more current Avs — Paul Stastny, Adam Foote and David Jones — missed the 2008-09 stretch run with injuries. Plus, TJ Galiardi, now injured, played in Colorado’s final 11 games two seasons ago.
“You know what? Two years is a long time ago,” Liles said after the latest embarrassing loss. “As far as comparing it to anything, I’m not going to get into that. It’s unacceptable how we’re playing. That’s the biggest thing. You can look back all you want, compared to different years, but regardless of what’s happened in the past, this is right now. This is unacceptable. That’s the best word I can use.”
Budaj played most of the games down the stretch two seasons ago, and he even had two regulation shutouts in his final three appearances — games the Avalanche lost 1-0, once in overtime and once in a shootout. He came on again for Brian Elliott in the loss to Edmonton on Saturday.
“Every year’s different,” Budaj said. “I think right now, when we fall behind by one or two goals, it’s tougher for us to come back. We try to do too much, I would say. We should let everybody do their job. We have to be better starting from us (in goal) to everybody else. We have to pick it up. There’s a lot of hockey left. There are a lot of points on the line, and we have to battle.”
The Avalanche is only six points ahead of the Oilers, the No. 15 team in the conference. Only the Oilers (54), and Ottawa (53) were below the Avalanche in the “race” for draft lottery positioning. The nonplayoff teams, if they haven’t traded the pick, all go into the lottery, but it’s so heavily weighted, the worse a team finishes, the better its chances of procuring a high choice.
Terry Frei: 303-954-1895 or tfrei@denverpost.com
