Avalanche goalie Reto Berra did what he needed to do Thursday night in his bid to win the backup position, stopping 24 of 25 shots in an uneventful 1-0 loss to Calgary at the Pepsi Center.
"He was really good," coach Patrick Roy said. "I was very happy with him. He made some great saves, kept the game at 1-0."
Flames goalie Joni Ortio turned aside 35 shots, 14 in the third period. He played well but wasn't severely tested. The Avalanche totaled three shots on four power plays and never did get into much of an offensive flow.
"I thought overall we did a lot of good things out there," Roy said. "The things I didn't like is we made it too easy for their goalie. I thought our structure was pretty solid, our forecheck. Our execution on the power play was not solid enough. We missed too many passes and I thought when we had point shots I didn't like the fact that we didn't have traffic in front of the net.
"These are the things we're going to have to do better. These are the nights when you might have to score an ugly one and tonight it wasn't there."
The Flames scored at 13:50 of the first period on a goal by Josh Jooris. He skated down left wing by defenseman Zach Redmond and put a shot on goal that Berra stopped with his pad. But Jooris got to the rebound and put it in with defenseman Nick Holden standing in front.
Jarome Iginla and Dennis Everberg (both hip ailments) didn't play. Jesse Winchester didn't play in either of the first two games after appearing to make some progress from the concussion that caused him to miss all last season, so this is troubling.
The Avalanche reduced the roster to 44 by sending four players to San Antonio in the AHL after the game: center Freddie Hamilton and defensemen Mat Clark, Mason Geertsen and Duncan Siemens, a first-round pick (No. 11) in 2011.
This was the Avalanche lineup for most of the game Thursday, though Nathan MacKinnon was given some shifts at center in the third period.
FORWARDS Mitchell - Duchene - Skille Martinsen - Grigorenko - MacKinnon Agozzino - Street - Rendulic McLeod - Cliche - Bordeleau
DEFENSE Beauchemin - Johnson Bigras - Stuart Holden - Redmond
GOALIES Berra Pickard
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NHL.com is running season previews for all 30 NHL teams. My Avalanche preview is here. Keep in mind my deadline was a week ago.
As part of the preview package, here are three X-factors that will go a long way in determining if the Avalanche make the playoffs.
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The Avalanche is spending Friday and Saturday in Vail, taking part in team bonding activities Friday. They practice there Saturday at the Dobson Ice Arena at 11 a.m. before returning for Sunday's game against Los Angeles at the Pepsi Center.