Avalanche coach Jared Bednar chastised his players Friday following his rested squad blew a 2-0 lead and dropped to the road-weary Anaheim Ducks at a game Colorado had to win to keep its dwindling playoff hopes alive.
“We were checking with our eyes,” Bednar said following the Ducks scored in the final minute of regulation for a 5-3 victory at the Pepsi Center. “We got to check with our thighs. We’re supposed to be rested staff. We didn’t win enough races. We didn’t check the puck back . We build a lead and it looked like we got comfortable with it and just stopped functioning. I didn’t think our work ethic was exceptional in the first period, either, to be honest with you. ”
Colorado took a 2-0 lead into the first intermission before the roof caved in on a team that had three days off between games this week.
Ducks forward Corey Perry scored broke a 3-3 tie with a power-play goal with 57 seconds left and Anaheim added an empty-netter in the final seconds. The Avalanche (30-29-12, 72 points) remain five points behind Arizona for the Western Conference playoff spot, with just 11 games remaining.
Anaheim was playing on consecutive nights, and the third time in four days. The Ducks (29-35-9) lost 6-1 on Thursday at Arizona.
“As a team you may ’t continually learn the same lesson. It just seems like we’re learning the same lesson, over and over on our losses,” Bednar said. “I know our guys care but we didn’t play an inspired game today, like we really needed it — like it was mandatory that we won. The urgency, for me, wasn’t there. ”
Colorado forged a 3-3 tie with Sven Andrighetto’s tap-in goal 8:42 into the third period. Andrighetto, who hadn’t scored in his previous 14 games, took a pass from defenseman Ian Cole and tapped the puck in diagonally on goalie John Gibson.
However, Avs forward Mikko Rantanen was issued a high-sticking penalty at 17:39 and Perry struck for his second goal of the game at 19:03.
“I haven’t seen (the replay),” Rantanen stated. “I guess it was a punishment. Nothing else to say. ”
He added: “What we did in the first period — we had the O-zone all the time. It was tough — tough second period. Just (upset). We pushed back in the third, however, I don’t know. ”
Anaheim dominated the second period — on the scoreboard, that is — getting goals from Perry, Ryan Getzlaf and Daniel Sprong at 6:08, 7:23 and 13:40. Perry beat goalie Semyon Varlamov off a lucky bounce from atop the crease before Getzlaf used a wrist shot from the right circle to tie it 2-2. Sprong out-muscled defenders to slap at a rebound in front of the left post and the puck dribbled in off Varlamov.
The Avs outshot the Ducks 13-12 in the second period but skated into the second intermission with only a badly blown lead.
“Disappointing is the first word that comes to mind,” Avs defenseman Ian Cole said. “We had a pretty (poor) second period there, able to fight back and tie it up. You know, PK has got to have a kill there (at the end), got to get the job done. ”
As planned, Colorado jumped on the Ducks early, getting timely saves from Varlamov before building a 2-0 lead from goals by Nathan MacKinnon and Rantanen (power play) at 6:54 and 18:10. MacKinnon capped a gorgeous end-to-end play with a big one-time blast from the left circle. He received a circle-to-circle saucer pass from J.T. Compher, who accepted a long lead pass from defenseman Sam Girard near the Avs’ goalline.
Rantanen doubled the lead when he drove to the net from the left wing and lifted a backhand shot in Gibson’s far post.
Avs defenseman Nikita Zadorov was similarly as critical as his coach. “It’s hard to win when we don’t play hard 60 minutes. It’s been hurting us all year. We had a great first period, pretty good third period, totally lost (the second) period, give up three goals — like that’s totally unacceptable. I mean, got to keep working, keep trying, like there’s no losers on this team. We all want to win and then we have 11 games, we just made it harder for ourselves, but all the guys are going to keep pushing and keep riding and keep fighting for playoffs. ”
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Footnotes. The Avs played their third game without left wing and team captain Gabe Landeskog, who’ll miss the rest of the regular season with an upper-body injury. … Colorado concludes a four-game homestand Sunday against the New Jersey Devils.
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