Ever since their 17-game winning streak ended in January, the Avalanche haven\u2019t had an easy time winning games at Ball Arena. On Saturday, the Winnipeg Jets handed Colorado its fourth straight loss at home and 10th in the last 14 games (4-7-3).<\/p>\n
Winnipeg\u2019s Cole Perfetti redirected a shot from Jacob Bryson with 5:11 remaining in regulation on Friday and Kyle Connor added an empty netter to defeat the Avs 4-2. <\/p>\n
\u201cThis has got to be a place where we teams gotta come in and feel our presence,\u201d superstar defenseman Cale Makar said. \u201cAnd I felt like we didn\u2019t do that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Makar recorded an assist to reach 500 career points, becoming the fourth fastest defenseman to reach the mark. Brock Nelson and Parker Kelly scored for the Avs, who fell to 48-14-10 and saw their four-game winning streak come to an end. The division lead is back to seven points with a game in hand, as the Dallas Stars won 6-3 over the Pittsburgh Penguins. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe started okay today, obviously gave them a quick one, but I think there\u2019s different areas we can tighten up,\u201d Makar said.<\/p>\n
Mackenzie Blackwood got his fourth start in five games and finished with 17 saves. Connor Hellebuyck stopped 21 Avalanche shots at the other end. The eventual game-winner was challenged for goalie interference before it was confirmed a goal. Avs head coach Jared Bednar wanted to give his team a chance to wipe it off the board with such little time remaining in regulation. <\/p>\n
\u201cI challenged it because of the timing of it. One goal, the whole game was five-on-five, and it\u2019s hard to create offense,\u201d he said. \u201cIf they go up 3-2, you\u2019ve got a couple shifts, and then you\u2019re pulling the goalie. So if you can try to erase it off the board, I thought it was worth a shot. It\u2019s close enough. And if we don\u2019t, we just need another kill, and we just had a great kill.\u201d<\/p>\n
Colorado finished 2-for-2 on the PK.<\/p>\n
Just like they did on Thursday, the Jets opened the scoring with a tally from their top line. Gabe Vilardi redirected a shot from Josh Morrissey at 3:51 to make it 1-0 on just their third shot. <\/p>\n
The Avs didn\u2019t need too long to answer back. Dylan Samberg was whistled for holding at 8:17. Forty-one seconds later, Nelson scored on a redirect of his own, putting the puck up and over goalie Connor Hellebuyck off a nice feed from Nazem Kadri. <\/p>\n
That\u2019s their 12th power play goal in March.<\/p>\n
The score remained tied entering the first knotted up at 1-1, with Winnipeg having the slight 10-9 edge in shots on goal.<\/p>\n
In the second, the Avs played 15 minutes of uninspiring hockey. In the process, Cole Koepke notched his seventh of the season after beating Brent Burns to get in close before fanning on a shot. The puck still beat Blackwood five-hole, giving Winnipeg its second lead of the game at 2:14. <\/p>\n
It took nearly a full period for the Avs to get it back. The top line started to generate some chances, but couldn\u2019t beat Hellebuyck. And with 1:55 remaining in the frame, Kelly redirected a Josh Manson shot from the point, again beating Hellebuyck on a tip to make it 2-2.<\/p>\n
The teams played four minutes of 4-on-4 hockey in the third, as two separate matching minors were called. The Jets also had both of their PP chances late, and Colorado killed each one with ease. <\/p>\n
Good: Power Play Creativity<\/p>\n
The addition of Kadri on the power play has helped more than I initially thought it would. I wonder if he would\u2019ve joined the top unit had it not been for the Gabe Landeskog injury right before Kadri\u2019s debut. But it opened a door for him to get the chance, and he\u2019s run with it.<\/p>\n
Kudos to Bednar for moving Nelson to the middle and letting Kadri set up in the right circle. Kadri doesn\u2019t have a Mikko Rantanen shot, but he can still unload from that spot. He\u2019s also got a ton of creativity and makes plays that the team just didn\u2019t have before his arrival.<\/p>\n
Case in point, the power play goal in the first period. That was excellent puck placement from Kadri, and he took his time to make sure he got it right after Nelson called for the redirect. <\/p>\n
Bad: Second Period Snoozer<\/p>\n
For the majority of the second period, the Avalanche were playing bland and disconnected hockey. They couldn\u2019t connect on a pass, were missing defensive assignments, and there was a true lack of creativity in what they were doing in general.<\/p>\n
As the frame wound down, things started to pick up, eventually leading to the Parker Kelly goal. But it took a while for them to find their legs. It felt like the third period had a lot of this, too.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ever since their 17-game winning streak ended in January, the Avalanche haven\u2019t had an easy time winning games…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":529304,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5116],"tags":[193,192,144,5277,5,4],"class_list":{"0":"post-529303","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-colorado-avalanche","8":"tag-avalanche","9":"tag-colorado","10":"tag-colorado-avalanche","11":"tag-coloradoavalanche","12":"tag-hockey","13":"tag-nhl"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/529303","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=529303"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/529303\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/529304"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=529303"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=529303"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=529303"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}