It wasn't an especially encouraging preseason start for the Avalanche, who were swept by the Anaheim Ducks on Monday night in split-squad games, losing 5-2 at the Pepsi Center and 4-0 at the Honda Center.
Playing against what could be described as the Ducks' 'B' team in Denver, the Avalanche gave up four third-period goals -- the last into an empty net -- to spoil the debuts of Daniel Briere, Jarome Iginla and Brad Stuart.
Brad Winchester scored two goals for the Ducks, who grabbed a 4-2 lead when Andrew Cogliano and Patrick Maroon scored 44 seconds apart. Jakob Silfverberg scored into the vacated net with 1:33 to play following an Avalanche giveaway.
Alex Tanguay converted the rebound of Nathan MacKinnon's shot with 55 seconds left in the first period for a 1-1 tie and defenseman Zach Redmond put the Avalanche in front 2-1 at 12:30 of the second period with a shot from the right point that hit a Ducks stick and sailed by goalie Jason LaBarbera, who stopped 19 of 21 shots.
Calvin Pickard went the distance in goal for the Avalanche and permitted four goals on 27 shots.
"I thought we did a lot of good things in the first two (periods) and I have to give them a lot of credit," Avalanche coach Patrick Roy said of the Ducks. "They came here and they worked hard. Maybe they worked a little harder than us. I'm OK with this. It was a great opportunity for us to see some of our guys, evaluate guys, and this is the time of the year where you want to look at your players, at the ones you have in your system, and see which ones are going to continue to go in training camp.
"We had a total of 60 minutes of practice and there's things we'd like to change in the way we played tonight. I'm fine with everything so far. I would love to win, but at the same time we're not here to win today, we're here to look at the players and evaluate our players."
MacKinnon had five shots on goal to go with his assist in 18:07 of ice time, and he won 13 of 19 faceoffs, something he said he has been working hard to improve. He spent most of the game on a line with Tanguay and Andrew Agozzino, who had four shots and two assists. Tanguay scored on his only shot.
Matt Duchene, who skated for the most part with Iginla and Dennis Everberg, had four shots in 20:57, lost seven of 12 faceoffs and was stopped on a clean breakaway during a power play late in the second period. Iginla didn't have a shot on goal in 19:34.
Roy said he thought the defense pairing of Duncan Siemens and Redmond was the Avalanche's best. Siemens had one shot and three hits in 17:16 of playing time. Redmond scored on his only shot and logged 18:14 in ice time.
Briere didn't have a shot in 17:57 and Stuart, who was paired with Erik Johnson, had one shot, three hits and three blocked shots in 21:43.
The Avalanche went 0-for-7 on power plays, an area the team hasn't done much work on the first three days in camp, and killed all three of the Ducks advantages.
Here's the Avalanche lineup at the Pepsi Center:
FORWARDS Everberg-Duchene-Iginla Agozzino-MacKinnon-Tanguay Talbot-Briere-Vincour Heard-Hishon-Bleackley
DEFENSEMEN Stuart-Johnson Siemens-Redmond Bigras-Noreau
GOALIES Pickard Aittokallio
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Goalie Reto Berra gave up goals on the first two shots he faced in Anaheim, to Dany Heatley and Rickard Rakell, in the Avalanche's other loss. He finished with 26 saves.
Ben Lovejoy and Brandon Bell also scored for the Ducks. Goalie Frederik Andersen made 27 saves.