Here we go again. Another poor start has put the Avalanche five points out of the second wild card playoff position in the Western Conference just seven games into the season.
A 1-3-1 record at the Pepsi Center with three consecutive home losses to teams (Boston, Carolina and Columbus) that had a combined 1-15-0 record at the time the Avalanche played them.
So despite playing five of the first seven games at home, the Avalanche will take a 2-4-1 record on the road this week against Florida, Tampa Bay and Carolina. Eleven of the next 14 games will be played on the road, including a seven-game, 14-day marathon in the East (finishing in Winnipeg).
"It was an opportunity to take advantage of the schedule," coach Patrick Roy said. "Our home record needs to be better, but it's early in the season."
It's getting late fast. The Avalanche are 12th in the West where six teams have already gained 10 or more points, five of which are in the Central Division.
“We dug ourselves into a hole last year by Christmas," Alex Tanguay said after Saturday's 4-3 loss to a Blue Jackets team that came in 0-8-0 and fired their coach Wednesday, replacing Todd Richards with John Tortorella. "It didn’t matter how good we were going to play after Christmas, there was basically no chance for us of making the playoffs. Now, we’re already in the hole so we have to start winning games and put ourselves in a good position."
"The Central ... everybody seems to win every game in the Central," Nathan MacKinnon said. "I'm on my phone and I see the Central teams winning and it's the toughest division in the NHL and we're going to need close to 100 points to make the playoffs. What we're doing in the third periods, it's getting a bit embarrassing."
The Avalanche have lost three consecutive one-goal games and already have blown two third-period leads, the 5-4 opening-night meltdown to Minnesota and on Saturday when they couldn't build on or hold the 3-2 lead they took into the final 20 minutes against Columbus, which lost all seven of its previous games it trailed after two periods.
The Avalanche have scored 19 goals and allowed 21 this season. Last year, when they went 1-4-2 in the first seven games, they were outscored 24-12.
"We're playing better hockey, I can feel that," MacKinnon said. "At least we're scoring goals this season. Offense is there. Honestly, it's kind of a rollercoaster. The offense wasn't there against Carolina (a 1-0 overtime loss), but our defense was and (Saturday) it flipped-flopped. We need to be able to play a sound game in every situation, be a mature team to finish out games."
Goalie Semyon Varlamov has played one solid game in five starts. He's giving up soft goals and too many rebounds. He faced 36 shots Saturday, 20 through the first two periods.
"I really thought that after two periods we didn't give them much," Roy said. "Even if they had a lot of shots on net, they were shooting from the outside and Varly had an easy night. I think we gave them maybe five or six scoring chances in two periods."
Mistakes led to the Blue Jackets' two third-period goals, which were scored by Ryan Murray and Brandon Dubinsky 2:47 apart.
"Just our defensive awareness," MacKinnon said. "Closing out games ... Minny, our third period against L.A., Carolina. We have to be better in our thirds. Especially we're up 3-2 (Saturday) knowing these guys haven't won a game and they're going to be hungry. There's not a whole lot to say, I guess we'll have to go over some things. It starts with myself, with everybody, we just need to be better."
MacKinnon gave the Avalanche a 3-2 lead with 2:48 left in the second period off a Jarome Iginla pass on a power play. He had seven shots on goal (and attempted six others) in 21:15 of ice time and won 12 of 19 faceoffs.
The Avalanche took some bad penalties. They squandered a chance to go on a 5-on-3 power play that could have lasted 1:44 late in the second period when Gabriel Landeskog was penalized 3 seconds into it for interference on the faceoff.
Blake Comeau was penalized twice in the final 4:53 of regulation, for high sticking and then interference, though the second one was a pretty weak call .
As for Roy's take during his postgame comments, he continued to put a positive spin on things.
"We had chances at the end to tie the game, but I thought we did a good job defensively," he said. "I know they scored four goals, but I thought we did a good job. We didn't give that many scoring chances. If we keep going like this, we manage our game better, I'm very confident that we're going to win our share of games.
"We have four losses (plus one in overtime) and three of them have come in one-goal games. It's just a matter right now to manage our game a little bit better and I think that can make a big difference between losing and winning because we're doing a lot of good things."
Some good news: defenseman Tyson Barrie has completed his three-game suspension. The Avalanche went 0-2-1 without him.
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First-round draft pick Mikko Rantanen played his first game for San Antonio on Saturday and had a goal and an assist in the Rampage's 5-1 win against Stockton. He played right wing, his natural position, on a line with Ben Street and Colin Smith.
“I just want to play," Rantanen told the Rampage web site. "They want me to play more than I was playing. It’s a little disappointing (getting sent down), of course, but I enjoyed playing more here.…
Rantanen turns 19 on Thursday.