Less than 15 minutes later meeting with reporters Tuesday night in the Pepsi Center, Avalanche general manager Joe Sakic witnessed a prime example of why his team entered its game against the Columbus Blue Jackets having won an NHL-low five games since Dec. 7.

Exercising from the puck — the term for playing defense in hockey — is Sakic’s biggest gripe about his team, and top-pair defensemen Erik Johnson and Ian Cole further afield the GM’s anxiety on their first shift from the Blue Jackets.

Avs forwards made a change change using the puck in the neutral zone and Johnson and Cole didn’t avoid a wrap-around goal 53 seconds into the match, marking the second successive time the partners let a goal on their first change. In Saturday’s 5-1 loss to the visiting Vancouver Canucks, Cole’s neutral-zone pinch pushed Johnson to defend a 2-on-1 rush on a play Vancouver scored for a 1-0 lead.

The Avs, who had been knocked out of playoff place with the loss to the Canucks, entered Tuesday when playing from below winning just games. They are now 7-18-6, after blowing a 3-2 lead in the second period against Columbus and dropping 6-3, finishing 1-4 in a homestand divided from the NHL All-Star weekend as well as their bye week. The Blue Jackets, who tied it 3-3 on a breakaway goal late in the second period, snapped a five-game losing streak.

“I believe we’do a very good job with the puck, but we’re taking a lot of chances, giving up a lot of quality chances and we’re not getting a huge save,” Sakic said pregame. “If we be a little more committed to checking and could shore up our defensive play, we could turn this thing around. ”

This matter, however, is much more complicated than just improving team protection. The Avs have really gone 5-15-3 in their last 23 games — later standing 17-7-5 and tied for a Western Conference-most 39 points on Dec. 6 — also because of below-average goaltending and shortage of secondary scoring. The Avs tied a last season but harbor ’t nearly been good at Mile High this year, standing 10-10-5 after Tuesday’s loss.

“We had been from errors of our personal and in a situation that was good ended up placing ourselves ” Cole said postgame. “Obviously, obviously and losing the lead going into the isn going behind in the third is bad. Clearly although we worked tirelessly to put ourselves in a spot …, whatever. ”

Cole ran from words.

There’s no aspect of the match safe from criticism for a young club which astonishingly made the movie last spring and was just expected to improve because its roster developed and was fine with modest additions. Even the free-agent acquisitions of Cole, ahead Matt Calvert along with goalie Philipp Grubauer apparently weren’t sufficient, and having the NHL’s highest-scoring line in Central Division all-stars Nathan MacKinnon, Gabe Landeskog along with Mikko Rantanen doesn’t make up for shoddy defense and too little depth.

The MacKinnon line has cooled lately, after Rantanen and MacKinnon stood second and first in NHL scoring in November.

“As a team, we still made some bonehead errors at times which are just uncalled for, forwards and defensemen,” said Landeskog, the staff captain, said following Tuesday’s loss. “I believe we under exactly precisely the same microscope , exactly precisely the same category. Throughout the first two phases I really believed we’re going to own this one. ”

Said Sakic: “(We) still have (30) games to go, almost half the season (41 matches ). We think in this particular category, and I know the team feels in themselves. We just have to grab a few wins, any way they could, and get the confidence in that and get back playing how we of. ”

The Feb. 25 NHL trade deadline is a little less than three months off, and Sakic said he and his staff might work a two or two to improve the team. But the Avs won’t part with either of their two 2019 draft picks or prospects including defensemen Cale Makar and Connor Timmins or forwards Shane Bowers or Martin Kaut.

“We enjoy our rear end. We enjoy our goaltending — we just got to get them playing with more confidence,” Sakic said. “If we could add some scoring, then some depth scoring, then that would be our priority. ”

The Avs lack an embryonic volatile second-line center, in part as second-year ahead Alex Kerfoot, J.T. Compher along with Tyson Jost aren’t ready for that obligation. Jost had been reverted to Colorado’s American Hockey League affiliate past month. New York Rangers forwards Chris Kreider along with Kevin Hayes are trade targets who would fit nicely with the Avs.

“We’ve been speaking with teams the better part of 3, four months. But what our high prospects and picks are moving,” Sakic said. “Right now, for almost any participant you’re talking about — that they ’re looking at gamers we’re not ready to offer up. But we have to visit where we are at the moment and we all ’ ll see. There are items we all ’ll continue to appear at — hockey transactions — and see how we could get. ”

Sakic stated the “goal” is making a second-straight cursory look, however, he won’t mortgage the near future.

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“We’re looking at the big picture here. We love what’s forthcoming he said. “It’therefore a procedure, and we all ’re not likely to deviate from that program. When there’s ’s a participant which can help us who isn’t likely to comprise among those (first-round) picks and top prospects, then we’ll consider that. ”

Sakic also has no plans of creating a coaching change. Third-year coach Jared Bednar was a Jack Adams Award finalist as NHL coach of the year last spring after leading Colorado to some remarkable 47-point improvement from his first year.

“The problem is not coaching. We have systems,” Sakic said. “The biggest thing for me is our play off from the puck. ”

Colorado starts a tough Eastern Conference road trip Thursday in Washington, the defending Stanley Cup champion. The Avs visit the New York Islanders and Boston Bruins Saturday and Sunday, respectively.

“It’s never time to panic, for me personally, since it doesn’t get you everywhere,” Bednar said postgame. “We just keeping working grind through it and to find answers, and assemble our confidence. ”

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