The Colorado Avalanche have hit their first moment of adversity in the young NHL season, dropping their third consecutive game, this time in overtime to the Vancouver Canucks by a score of 7-6. In another game the coaches will probably want to burn the tape of, the Avs were far too sloppy defensively and were not able to get any key saves from their goaltender.

What did we learn from this game?

  1. Jared Bednar completely mixed up the lines up front (beyond the big guns), and even switched up every defensive pairing. The Avs, as a team, have not been generating many shot attempts when the top line isn’t on the ice, and the switch up seemed to at least create a nice second line for one evening.
  2. Sheldon Dries looks to be an amazing organizational depth find for the Avalanche. Coming off an AHL contract, Dries signed his first NHL deal with Colorado this summer. He’s been up and down with the Eagles in Loveland, but now has three points in his last two games with the Avs and found his way onto the second line. If he keeps producing, it will be hard to send him down again.
  3. The defensive pair that had major success Friday night was Tyson Barrie being reunited with Nikita Zadorov. They finished last season together really strong, and looked to be a pair coming out of camp, but the coaching staff had other ideas. Both of them finished +3 with positive possession numbers. Barrie picked up an assist in the second period, and Zadorov scored his first goal of the year in the third. This is a pair that should stick together for a while.
  4. Goaltender Philipp Grubauer had easily his worst game in an Avs uniform. He struggled tracking the puck all night long, and had several miscommunications with his teammates when trying to handle the puck. It’s tough to get in a groove with a new team when you are not playing very often, so this will be an interesting situation to watch play out.
  5. The Avalanche scored 11 goals in two games and only came away with one point. That’s tough to do, and a real kick in the shins. They have now lost three straight games, and will need to turn it around in the very tough Central Division.

The Avalanche are off for four days and return home on Wednesday evening to play the Nashville Predators. The game starts at 8 PM MST.