Losing 1-0 in overtime to the Minnesota Wild on Monday night was one thing. Mikael Granlund, who had a game-high seven shots, scored 5:08 into the extra period at the Xcel Energy Center, but the Avalanche still has a 2-1 lead in the best-of-seven playoff series.
Losing defenseman Tyson Barrie for the remainder of the series and most likely the second round -- if the Avalanche manages to get that far -- is an extremely damaging blow.
Coach Patrick Roy told reporters that Barrie sustained an injury to the medial collateral ligament in his left knee on a knee-on-knee hit by Minnesota's Matt Cooke early in the second period and will be out for between four and six weeks.
It's the same injury that has prevented center Matt Duchene from playing since March 29. Right wing PA Parenteau missed 10 games with an MCL injury in his left knee Dec. 31-Jan. 18 and 15 games to an MCL injury to his right knee March 12-April 10.
Cheap-shot artist Cooke was given a minor penalty.
Not that the Wild losing Cooke to a suspension is any way comparable to the Avalanche losing Barrie for at least a month, if Colorado's postseason lasts that long. Feel really badly for Barrie, a young player who finally came into his own this year.
"It's a direct knee-on-knee hit ... I don't want to say anything," defenseman Erik Johnson said.
Roy said the Avalanche will use either Stefan Elliott or Ryan Wilson in Barrie's place for Game 4 on Thursday.
"He's one of our best players, one of our best defensemen," rookie Nathan MacKinnon told Altitude TV. "We can't replace a guy like that. The whole season we've been losing guys. We have to bounce back from that."
MacKinnon said the Avalanche has to concentrate on playing better Thursday, not trying to extract some sort of vengeance.
"I think we need to move on," he said. "I guess we'll see how the NHL reacts to everything. For us, we can't worry about that stuff. Tyson is a great teammate and a heck of a player and it's tough to lose him. We got some warriors on this team and we have to be resilient and use our depth to our advantage."
It sure would help if the Avalanche could do something on what continues to be a brutal power play. It's one way to prevent an opponent from using cheap-shot tactics. Colorado went 0-for-4 Monday (totaling four shots), is 1-for-11 in the series (Paul Stastny's empty-net goal late in Game 2 came with the man advantage) and 1-for-22 against the Wild counting the five regular-season meetings.
*****
Roy gave the Wild credit for outplaying the Avalanche by a wide margin. Minnesota outshot Colorado 22-8 in the first period and 46-22 for the game. Goalie Semyon Varlamov managed to be named the game's third star?
"We didn't play up to what we are capable, there's no doubt," Roy said. "But I'd rather give them credit, they played well, they were sharp. They were the better team on the ice. If it was not for Varly, it could have been ... whatever. He's the only reason we had a chance to win this game. We were one shot away, let's not forget about it, but Varly was sharp. This is the way he's been all year.
"They played with more urgency than we did. Without a doubt they were more hungry. We have 11 guys, it's their first playoff and it was their first (playoff game) on the road. Now they know what it is to play on the road. It's a learning process for us and now we need to regroup and be ready for Game 4, that's all."
Give Wild goalie Darcy Kuemper some credit. He stopped all 14 shots he faced in relief of Ilya Bryzgalov on Saturday and 22 more Monday for the shutout.
*****
The Wild shut down the Gabriel Landeskog-Stastny-MacKinnon line, holding it to seven shots after the unit accounted for four goals and six assists in Game 2 and was responsible for seven of the nine goals the Avalanche scored in the first two games.
Some other players are going to have to start contributing, because a one-line team isn't going to cut it for very long.
"Credit to them, they played well," Johnson said. "We still are playing with house money in the series here, up 2-1."