Sure looked familiar, didn't it?
Poor defensive play, undisciplined penalties, the inability to win on home ice ...
The question now is, how will the Avalanche respond following their 5-1 loss to Nashville on Tuesday at the Pepsi Center? The schedule sure doesn't get any easier: at Chicago on Thursday, a home matinee with Minnesota on Saturday and at St. Louis on Sunday.
Yes, the Predators were due to break out after losing six of their previous seven games, but ...
"This was embarrassing, and I promise all the Avs fans out there that this is not going to happen at home again," captain Gabriel Landeskog said.
(The Avalanche practiced Wednesday before leaving for Chicago. Defenseman Fedor Tyutin skated again and will play after missing four games with a groin injury. Goalie Semyon Varlamov will start.)
"We're eight games in, so every team is a little bit like this, or the teams that are not leading the division or the conference are a little bit like this," coach Jared Bednar said. "We have to start having a long-term response and learning from some of the mistakes we're making right now, and I believe we'll get there. The guys are saying and doing the right things postgame, which is a start. Now, we've got to make sure we're ready at the start of the game."
The Avalanche held a team meeting after the game, and Landeskog said that Bednar also addressed the players before the locker room was opened to the media.
"We were discussing some things just between players, and Jared came in and he addressed us as a group," Landeskog said. "To a man we have to be honest and look at ourselves in the mirror and really reflect on the way we come to work every day. We don't have time to sit around and mope around. We've got to come to work."
The Avalanche (4-4-0) have been outscored 16-10 in the past six games -- they've lost four -- after starting the season with wins against Dallas and Pittsburgh. Varlamov has allowed five goals in three of his six starts. While he can certainly be a lot better, it hasn't all been his fault.
"No, not all," Bednar said. "I don't know what the scoring chances were, but it was a lot. Some of the chances we were giving up, they were Grade A's. Their big guys turned it up a notch and we didn't. We didn't find the intensity that we needed for the game.
"It's disappointing because it was a chance for us to go a couple games above .500 and now we're just spinning in the mud again."
The Avalanche have had to play catch-up in six of the first eight games. They overcame 2-0 deficits against the Stars and Penguins, and erased a 1-0 deficit Saturday in Arizona.
"We've been sleepy," said Nathan MacKinnon, who has six assists but hasn't scored a goal since the season opener. "We haven’t got the first goal very much this year. Some games we work hard and we win, and that was part of the meeting we talked about. The games that we’ve shown up to work, we won all of them except the Winnipeg game (a 1-0 loss), so it’s going to take a team effort.
"We just need to show up in the first periods, we’ve been slow. I think with some momentum and better play from our better players on the team ... we have more responsibility, we have a job to do to score and it’s been tough the last couple of games.…