After a lost opportunity in Columbus, it's on to Winnipeg for an inconsistent Avalanche team that has gone 9-3-1 against Central Division teams and a combined 0-5-1 against Carolina, Columbus and Toronto.
Go figure.
The Avalanche can move back into the second wild card playoff position with a win against the Jets on Monday (Nashville is idle, plays Chicago at home Tuesday). But they will have played two more games than the Predators, who ended a five-game losing streak Saturday by beating Minnesota while the Avalanche were losing to the Blue Jackets.
The Avalanche have 4-1 and 5-3 wins against the Jets, who are two points behind them and coming off wins against the Predators and Wild.
#Avs The Wild West couldn't be much tighter. #Avalanche need a win in Winnipeg on Monday after Saturday's loss. pic.twitter.com/KhLUvrEzFE
— Rick Sadowski (@RickS7) January 17, 2016Did the Avalanche play well enough to win in Columbus? Does it matter? They lost 2-1 when Jack Johnson's shot deflected off Cody McLeod's skate and went past goalie Calvin Pickard with 67 seconds left in regulation.
"I was just trying to get it by the first guy, and obviously I didn't really think it would go in," Johnson told the Columbus Post-Dispatch. "I couldn't believe it went in. It bounced once, might have hit the guy's skate, went through (Pickard's) arm. Those aren't the ones you expect to go in. It's better to be lucky than good sometimes."
With 17 wins and 38 points, the Blue Jackets have the worst record in the NHL, yet they managed to post two regulation wins against the Avalanche, who can't afford to fritter away potential points in such a tight race for playoff positions.
Giving up a goal to Brandon Dubinsky 58 seconds into the game wasn't a good idea, either.
"We were sharp tonight, except for maybe that first shift when they scored that first goal," coach Patrick Roy told reporters. "Other than that, we were impeccable in our own end and certainly deserved better than that. That's the way this game is. You're going to win some that you don't deserve to win and sometimes you lose some you deserve to win. (Saturday was) an example."
Jackets rookie goalie Joonas Korpisalo played well, turning aside 29 shots, but he told the Post-Dispatch: "The night was pretty easy for me. The 'D' helped me a lot. They blocked shots and kept the guys away from the scoring areas in front of the net."
Chris Wagner scored a second-period goal for the Avalanche, who were 0-for-3 on power plays, running their slump with the man advantage to 0-for-9 while losing three of the past four games. They have four goals in the three defeats.
Twelve of the Avalanche's 30 shots came from defensemen. Matt Duchene, who turned 25 Saturday, had six shots and the remaining nine players combined for 12.
There also were eight official giveaways, way too many. Defenseman Nikita Zadorov had a rough time in that department and was minus-2 after playing so well Thursday against New Jersey.
Semyon Varlamov is scheduled to start in goal Monday, and he needs to come up big. He's allowed four goals in each if his past two starts, four goals four times in his past seven starts and 23 goals overall in that span