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Compher, Jost out significant time; NHL error cost Avs goal

October 20, 2017, 4:55 PM ET [3 Comments]
Rick Sadowski
Colorado Avalanche Blogger •Avalanche Insider • RSSArchiveCONTACT
The Avalanche will need to call up reinforcements from San Antonio before Tuesday's game against Dallas.

Forwards J.T. Compher (broken thumb) and Tyson Jost (lower-body injury), and defenseman Patrik Nemeth (lower-body injury) were hurt Thursday in the Avalanche's 4-3 loss to St. Louis at the Pepsi Center.

Compher was injured blocking a shot in the second period and will be out indefinitely. He was to be examined by a hand specialist Friday.

Jost and Nemeth were injured in the third period. Jost will miss 2-3 weeks, but it's possible Nemeth will be available to play against the Stars.

As for the offside snafu in the third period, the NHL said in a statement Friday that Mikko Rantanen's tying goal with 2:34 remaining in regulation should have counted.




Rantanen scored off a Sven Andrighetto pass to tie the game 4-4, but a video review that followed a challenge by Blues coach Mike Yeo determined that Andrighetto was offside, so the goal was nullified.

However, Andrighetto wasn't ruled offside by the linesman, who should have blown the play dead. Andrighetto then made a clean re-entry into the Blues end and fed Rantanen for the goal.

The NHL essentially went back and nullified the goal on the second zone entry, which isn't permitted.

Despite losing a potential one or two points, coach Jared Bednar was still more upset Friday about the play of a few players than the blown challenge ruling. Bednar benched Nail Yakupov for the entire third period even though the Avalanche were shorthanded because of the injuries.

Yakupov, who has gone four games without a point, declined to speak to reporters about the benching Friday after a 30-minute practice that only included eight skaters, both goalies and the assistant coaches.

Yakupov, Andrighetto, Chris Bigras, Tyson Barrie, Alexander Kerfoot, Anton Lindholm, Matt Nieto, Nikita Zadorov, Jonathan Bernier and Semyon Varlamov practiced.

"I appreciate (the NHL) coming out and saying that," Bednar said after being told Friday morning that the league had erred. "The original play was clearly offside and probably should have been whistled before the entry that we scored on. I think at the end of the day the right call was made if you use common sense.

"The way the rule sits -- and the entry was a good entry and the goal could have counted -- it's a mistake and our focus is more on our team game, how we can play, and we can't worry about decisions like that. They're doing their best to get the call right on the ice.

"We learned from last night's call for sure because we had a long conversation with them this morning."

As for the players that upset Bednar, this is what he said Friday:

"It's consistency in our game. It's a big game, it's for first place in the division. I know it's early in the year, but we (had) lost two in a row, we'd won two in a row at home, we're playing the first-place team in the division with a chance to be sitting in first place ourselves and then we had a few guys that I didn't think came to play at the level they had to play at.

"That's where we have to mature as a team. I also think, and I'm going at the positive side, we had a lot of guys who came and played really, really hard. They competed to win, and that was the large group of our team.

"But this is an unforgiving league. We learned that last year. You need everyone pulling the rope in the same direction every night or you're not going to win."



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