Another poor start and more awful penalty killing were instrumental in the Avalanche's 3-0 loss Tuesday in Washington.
Twenty-four hours after a 4-3 overtime win in Pittsburgh, Colorado made it easy for Capitals backup goalie
Philipp Grubauer to post his first NHL shutout, a 3-0 cakewalk at the Verizon Center.
"We're not a team that is going to look for excuses," coach
Jared Bednar told reporters after absorbing his first NHL defeat. "We weren't good enough to start the game, we weren't ready to skate; they were. We knew it was going to be a tough turnaround, but that can't happen."
The Avalanche gave up the first two goals for the third consecutive game and allowed two power-play goals for the third game in a row. If you're going to take as many penalties as they have in the first three games (14), you'd best kill them off.
Undisciplined play isn't going to cut it. The Capitals took advantage Tuesday, and the Tampa Bay Lightning will, too, if it continues Thursday in the third game of the four-game road trip.
"I think it is all about our response," Bednar said. "That was a bad night. Again, it was a tough turnaround for our guys. We'll give them a little slack there, but it is all about the response and what we do next game."
The lone bright spot: the play of goalie
Semyon Varlamov, who stopped 19 of 20 shots in the first period and 37 of 40 overall. Grubauer faced five shots in the first period and 18 for the game.
Nikita Zadorov and
Erik Johnson had a rough night; the defense pair was on the ice for all three goals.
Matt Duchene, who had three shots, is still looking for his first point. He took quite a tumble following a check by Capitals defenseman
Dmitry Orlov that sent him airborne. Duchene did a somersault over Orlov and quickly got to his skates after landing.
Here's the
ORLOV HIT on Duchene.
"I don’t really want to talk about it because I might say something that might get me in trouble," said Duchene, who thought Orlov came too close to his knees. "You guys saw it, so I shouldn’t have to say too much about it."
Jarome Iginla was assessed 17 penalty minutes -- instigating, fighting and game misconduct -- in the second period following a confrontation with Washington's
Tom Wilson, who was given a fighting penalty.
T.J. Oshie scored on the ensuing power play for a 2-0 lead.
“I thought we were going," Iginla told the
Denver Post. "I’ve been in a decent amount of them and I thought that was ‘go’ time. I guess it wasn’t.”
Alex Ovechkin opened the scoring with a first-period power-play goal with
Blake Comeau in the box for cross-checking, and Oshie scored his second of the night in the third period.
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