A year ago, the Colorado Avalanche stormed through the first half of the season with an incredible level of focus and determination.
If the Avs didn’t already know, repeating that kind of performance is pretty hard.
The Avalanche carried the play for long stretches Saturday night at Ball Arena, but mental mistakes and blown defensive coverages turned an at-times unlucky evening into a 6-3 defeat at the hands of the Toronto Maple Leafs.
“For the most part we played a decent game, but then we made some mistakes and they got some Grade-A chances and they buried them,” Avs forward Artturi Lehkonen said. “So, we need to make less mistakes.”
Colorado’s offense looks formidable through five games, at least at even strength. The Avs have scored 26 goals in five games, though the power play has gone cold again after a promising opening night.
Defensively, there have been issues at times, something that just bludgeoning the other team with goals can cover up. But not when Maple Leafs goalie Sergei Bobrovsky had a strong night, and not when both special teams had a rough one.
The Avs have proven they can win lots of games with dominant 5-on-5 play and a strong penalty kill, even if the power play doesn’t help. But they can’t win as consistently with the mistakes they made Saturday night.
“I wasn’t disappointed with the number of chances we gave up. I just did not like some of the chances,” Avs coach Jared Bednar said. “Just mental mistakes, that’s what it was. It wasn’t from lack of effort or lack of trying. It was mental mistakes, and when they got their chances, they capitalized on them.”
Former Avs defenseman Nick Blankenburg snuck down from the right point on Toronto’s first goal, and there wasn’t anyone in a home sweater near him. Ditto for William Nylander’s second goal on the power play — he was all alone at the left post with all four Colorado penalty killers puck watching on the right side of the ice.
Four of the five goals Toronto scored on goaltender Mackenzie Blackwood came directly after “royal road” passes — ones that start on one side of the offensive zone and cross to the other side.
“We’re looking to tighten things up every day, but it was mental mistakes for me,” Bednar said. “I’m not going to tell you who they are, but we had a couple players who made multiple mental mistakes that led to really good scoring chances.”
Two late second-period goals swung the game in Toronto’s favor. Colorado dominated much of the period, but Nylander and Easton Cowan scored 50 seconds apart and both goals involved breakdowns.
Brett Kulak turned it over on a failed clearing attempt that started the possession that led to Nylander’s second goal of the night. Nick Paul made a great play to knock the puck out of the air along the wall near the right point.
Colorado’s top line had to scramble back and no one picked up Nylander, who had drifted out from behind the net to set up in the high slot. Then Nylander carried the puck into the Avs’ zone, and the home side covered the initial rush with no trouble, but the Leafs moved it from the left circle to Cowan at the far side for a wide-open one-timer with far too little resistance.
“The chances that we do give up are way too dangerous,” Avs captain Gabe Landeskog said. “You look at the two goals they score at the end of the second — one is an F3 (the highest forward in the offensive zone) shot between the hash marks and the other is a seam across to a one-timer. Just too dangerous to give up to a team like this.”
While the Avs have scored 26 goals and felt like they could have scored even more in the two games they’ve lost, Colorado has also now allowed three or more in four of the five contests. Those defensive details — sorting out rush coverage, identifying who to pick up in scramble-drill situations, not falling asleep when the puck is on the other side of the ice — were nails for the Avs last year when they raced to a 31-2-7 start.
Expecting something similar to that historic start wasn’t fair. But this is one of the challenges for this specific Avalanche team.
This team believes it is good enough to win the Stanley Cup. It also knows the Cup isn’t awarded for starting 31-2-7. Fighting against human nature and dialing in as frequently as possible has to be a goal. Every team will have off nights. The Avs had stunningly few in the first half of last season.
Yes, Blackwood and the power play weren’t good enough. But the offensive effort at even strength could have been enough to overcome, were it not for the mistakes.
“Again, it’s not the number. It’s just sort of the quality and the type of breakdown,” Bednar said. “For me, could have easily been solved with a little awareness and a little talk and it wasn’t there. So we’ve got to get better at it.”
