Do the Avalanche even have a legitimate No. 1 goalie? (Not counting Calvin Pickard, who's back in San Antonio.)
Coach Patrick Roy was adamant at the morning skate Wednesday that Semyon Varlamov is "our No. 1 guy," that it's "always been like this," and that the Avalanche's hopes of climbing into the playoff picture essentially hinge on the 27-year-old Russian's ability to play the way he did in 2013-14 when he was a Vezina Trophy finalist.
"Is he having the start he wants? Probably not," Roy said in the morning. "But he's still our No. 1 goalie and he's the guy that we rely on to win hockey games. He played really well in Winnipeg and let's see what's going to happen tonight against Ottawa."
Well, two days after making 20 saves in a 4-1 road win against the Jets, Varlamov was yanked early in the second period in favor of Reto Berra Wednesday night after giving up three goals on 15 shots in the Avalanche's 5-3 loss to the Senators.
Senators rookie Shane Prince scored the first two goals of his brief NHL career 3:07 apart in the first period and Roy took out his hook at 1:48 of the third when Kyle Turris cashed in a Mike Hoffman pass for a 3-1 Ottawa lead.
Prince's first goal, which came at 5:54 of the opening period, came off a shot from the top of the right circle that Varlamov appeared to stop with his pads, but the puck trickled across the goal line.
"That was a bad goal, the first one," Roy said. "Coming off a seven-game road trip ... when I saw the first one going in, I said, 'C'mon Varly.' That can't happen. That was not a dangerous shot at all. It was coming from the boards and it really hurt us a lot. It took some momentum off of our game. He needs to be better. Period."
Prince's second goal was a redirection from the slot off a pass from Zack Smith at 9:01. Turris scored his team-leading 11th goal from the right hash marks.
Berra, who twice was pulled in favor of Pickard in two of the last three road games he played during the Avalanche's recent 4-3-0 trip, gave up a softie to Smith with 1:47 left in the second period. Smith popped one behind Berra from a sharp angle for a 4-1 Senators lead. It proved to be the winning goal when the Avalanche rallied for third-period goals from Gabriel Landeskog and Nathan MacKinnon.
The Avalanche outshot the Senators, who played in Dallas Tuesday night, 22-4 in the third period. Ottawa sealed the deal on Mika Zibanejad's shorthanded, empty-net goal with 6.2 seconds remaining, four seconds after Tyson Barrie drew a tripping penalty from Milan Michalek.
Berra stopped 12 of 13 shots, but former Avalanche goalie Craig Anderson stopped 40 of 43. He gave up the two third-period goals -- Landeskog deflected in MacKinnon's shot at 10:50 during a 6-on-4 power play with Berra on the bench -- but made a number of acrobatic stops as the Avalanche pressed.
"We need to close it out or tie it up somehow," said MacKinnon, who had a game-high seven shots. "It's nice that we came back and had a good third, but we're down by three going into the third, so we should be desperate and should have dominated. There's no moral victories, we need points. This was a good opportunity to get them and we didn't show up."
Matt Duchene, whose scoring streak ended at seven games, nearly scored in the waning minutes, as did Landeskog, MacKinnon and Barrie.
"(Anderson) played well," MacKinnon said. "That's the NHL, full of good goaltenders. Definitely feels like a goalie’s league, that’s for sure.…
Hmm, well ... feel free to insert your own comment here.
Because of the NHL's antiquated system for awarding wins and losses, Berra was tagged with the defeat; Smith's goal became the game winner when the Avalanche scored their second and third goals even though Ottawa never lost its lead.
Varlamov has a 4-6-1 record with a 3.22 goals-against average and .890 save percentage. Berra is 4-7-0 with a 2.39 average and .923 save percentage.
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"What we said after the second (period) was we want to play for our fans," Roy said. "We want to show we're a team with pride and there was no way we were going to give up. I thought our guys responded. We had a lot of chances. Unfortunately for us, we just couldn't score the goal that would bring that game to overtime.
"In some ways I was happy to see that we didn't quit. That was something to me that I was happy about. I won't say the word proud, but happy about it."
Now 8-13-1 overall, the Avalanche's 2-6-1 home record is the NHL's worst.
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Avalanche rookie Chris Wagner scored his first NHL goal at 10:36 of the first period during a goalmouth scramble. He was playing in his 25th NHL game, his fifth since the Avalanche claimed him on waivers Nov. 15 from Anaheim.
"It’s the best league in the world and scoring in it is just a blessing, but obviously you want to get the win there," Wagner said. "If we play like we did in the third for a full 60, we should have no problem winning most games. It was nice to see a good effort in the third there, but we need that for a full game.…