Avalanche can’t pull off late game heroics in 5-3 loss to Dallas

The third period comeback was fun while it lasted.

The Colorado Avalanche went to Dallas over Thanksgiving and on Black Friday hoped to shop for a W in the two teams’ first regular-season matchup since their playoff series last postseason. A third period comeback eventually led to a 5-3 defeat as the Avalanche will hope for a better result tomorrow in the second half of this holiday weekend back-to-back.

The Game

Starts have been an issue for the Avalanche this season. They began this contest with plenty of jump but a questionable penalty on Nikolai Kovalenko led to the Stars striking first and the Avalanche fell behind early yet again. The goal came about at the tail end of what was a pretty good penalty kill for the Avalanche. Dallas got the puck at the point and threw a soft wrister on the net which Alexandar Georgiev put to the slot. Typically this would be a horrible play for any netminder but the Stars had a player posted up at either side of the Avalanche net and Josh Manson was sitting alone all in front of his goaltender. Manson wasn’t ready for the puck to come to him and Mason Marchment was able to pounce on the play and feed it to Tyler Seguin who got the tally.

Colorado got a questionable call in their favor when Wyatt Johnston clipped Mikko Rantanen coming around the Avalanche net. Because hockey is a cruel sport and the Avalanche would also score on their less-than-deserved powerplay. Rantanen was given a yellow brick road to Jake Oettinger and beat him blocker side. There was some poor luck when the shot struck iron but Rantanen knocked the puck out of midair right to Val Nichushkin who took the garbage out to tie the game.

The big mistakes have plagued the Avs all year. Sam Girard pinching and getting no coverage help to give the Stars a two-on-one would be classified as a big mistake. Georgiev was able to make a stop on the initial rush but the Stars would get several wacks at it until Mason Marchment banked it off Georgiev’s foot and in. The score was 2-1 Dallas after 20 minutes of play.

This took the wind out of the Avs’ sails for quite some time, carrying into the second period.

Dallas controlled the entire middle frame. They were winning puck battles and making life hell for the Avalanche, It was a struggle for Colorado to string together two passes in the offensive zone. This was not the case for the Stars. They would score two goals to extend their lead to 4-1. The first came from Jamie Benn after a broken rush for the Stars that left him wide open in front to clean up a rebound. Then the Stars would get another questionable powerplay that led to a Roope Hintz goal, due to some pretty poor penalty killing from the Avalanche. It was also in this period the Avalanche lost Josh Manson as he left the game after seemingly injuring his hand or arm on a hit into the boards. The team would later announce he would not return.

Things looked pretty bleak for the Avalanche as the puck dropped in the third period. The mood got darker when Jake Oettinger made a great push to rob Cale Makar early in the frame but life was injected into the Avs just minutes later. The big save from Oettinger was followed up with a pretty soft goal from Artturi Lehkonen that snuck through the Dallas netminder’s wickets.

The Avs got the early goal they needed to give them hope, but there’s always hope when you have Cale Makar on your team. It’s hard to describe what Cale Makar did to set up Mikko Rantanen for the Avs’ third goal so I’ll leave it to what the beneficiary of Cale Makar’s wizardry seemingly said, “Holy f**k. That was f**king amazing”. (Sorry to any impressionable readers).

Colorado had a chance to tie the game with the net empty and even won the faceoff immediately after pulling Georgiev. That chance died almost immediately thanks to a rushed pass from Nathan MacKinnon that hopped directly over Cale Makar’s stick to Mason Marchment, who then deposited the puck into the empty net and killed the game in this 5-3 Dallas final.

Takeaways

It was a mess of a game for the Avalanche, though not necessarily in a bad way for Colorado. They had quality moments. They controlled play and held their own but it wasn’t sustained and that was the issue. Most of the teams’ chances were one-offs and they consistently struggled to control the puck.

They also had some massive collapses that led to the Stars’ goals against. This heat map from Natural Stat Trick gives a pretty daming representation of what went wrong for the Avalanche this game. It’s been an issue for them all year. They do not defend well in front of their net. Especially on rebounds. Teams constantly get second, third, and even fourth wacks at the puck and eventually, those pucks go in. I don’t think Georgiev was stellar tonight, but his team just couldn’t help him.

Nat Stat Trick

To get the negatives out of the way by my eye, both Casey Mittelstadt and Nathan MacKinnon were horrific tonight. Both had nice plays that led to a goal for the Avalanche but had inexcusable plays that led the other way. Casey Mittelstadt lost his man on Dallas’ third goal which allowed Miro Heiskanen to fire the shot that Jamie Benn would eventually clean up. On the second Dallas goal, Nathan MacKinnon pinches into the zone after Sam Girard already had, leading to an odd-man rush and the Mason Marchment goal. When the Avs need him to step up late in the game with the goalie pulled he panics at the point and fires a wobbly pass to Cale Makar which bounces over Makar’s stick directly to Marchment, who scores. Not good enough from those two at either end.

On the positive end, Cale Makar was as incredible as we’ve seen him tonight. Unfortunately for him, it feels that too many times this year we’ve seen some of his best games fall to the wayside. Often because of a lack of help from his fellow superstars. Defensively and offensively he was dominant. He was pushing play controlling possession when no one else could and breaking up plays in his own end. What more can you ask for?

Upcoming

The Colorado Avalanche faceoff against the Edmonton Oilers tomorrow night. Edmonton defeated the Utah Hockey Club 4-3 in OT tonight. Puck drop is at 8 p.m. MST. Mile High Hockey will have you covered.