Let's face it, the Avalanche are a bad team right now. Too many mistakes, turnovers, giveaways ... it's why they're reeling with what essentially have been four consecutive one-goal losses (Ottawa scored an empty-netter in last week's 5-3 game) leading to a 1-4-2 record.
Coach Patrick Roy was calm after Tuesday's 4-3 overtime loss to Florida at the Pepsi Center while heaping plenty of criticism at his players, most of whom made a quick getaway after the game.
"Right now the way I look at it is we want an easy game and until we're going to want to compete at the level we were last year, then we're going to struggle," he said. "We're not sharp mentally, we're making bad decisions. We make too many giveaways and we're losing easy one-on-one battles, then we're going to give 35 shots per night. This is a game of one-on-one battles."
The Avalanche didn't win many of those against a Panthers team that had been playing pretty well defensively but had scored five goals in their first five games.
They matched their previous season high for goals in a game -- two -- in the first period, a period in which they had failed to score a goal until Tuesday.
Defenseman Ryan Wilson, who left in the second period with a shoulder injury, started things off with an awful clearing attempt that was picked off by Jussi Jokinen in the left circle. Jokinen passed to Brandon Pirri for a quick blast that beat goalie Reto Berra at 4:43. Aleksander Barkov, the second overall pick in the 2013 NHL draft behind Nathan MacKinnon, cut to the net for an easy tap-in on a Panthers rush at 13:03 for a 2-0 lead.
The Avalanche matched their season high for goals in a game with three in the second period, two on power plays 31 seconds apart, to grab a 3-2 lead before the Panthers tied the game at 17:41 on a goal by Sean Bergenheim after another turnover.
After going 1-for-22 on the power play in their first six games, the Avalanche got a goal from Tyson Barrie on a two-man advantage at 10:51 and one from Gabriel Landeskog at 11:22 on a 5-on-4 situation. Barrie became the first Colorado defenseman to score a goal when he beat goalie Roberto Luongo with a one-timer from the left point. Landeskog scored when he drove to the front of the net and chipped the puck over Luongo's right shoulder and Alex Tanguay scored his team-leading third goal at 14:41. He stripped the puck from Florida defenseman Aaron Ekblad in the neutral zone and took a shot that went in off Bergenheim's skate.
"Yeah, we battled back and I'm very happy about that, but we need to play 60 minutes," Roy said.
The game was lost on a Brad Boyes power-play goal at 2:23 of overtime, 63 seconds after Avalanche defenseman Brad Stuart was penalized for tripping Barkov in the left corner in Colorado's end. The Avalanche weren't too happy about the call, especially after a non-call when Stuart was tripped by Tomas Fleischmann behind Berra's net with 3:50 remaining in regulation.
"I'm not going to make any comment on that," Roy said of Stuart's penalty. "You guys saw it."
The Panthers were in a 2-for-24 drought with the man advantage before Boyes whistled a shot behind Berra on the power play.
"On four against three they had a lot of room," said Berra, who had 33 saves. "It was a little screen and I have no idea where it went in, somewhere on the stick side."
Luongo made 30 saves for his 375th career win, moving him past John Vanbiesbrouck for 13th place on the all-time list. He's gone 15 consecutive decisions (13-0-2) without a regulation loss to the Avalanche.
"I'm fortunate," he said. "It seems you have success like this against one or two teams." Berra made a number of big stops to give the Avalanche a chance to win five days after hurting his neck in a collision in Ottawa.
Said Berra: "It was really good how we reacted to a bad first (period). We played really good in the second and a medium third. We needed a wakeup call and I think after that we worked hard. We got one point and we have to keep working, that's all we can do."
The Avalanche won't practice again until Thursday to prepare for Friday's game against Vancouver. Goalie Semyon Varlamov (groin) is expected to be activated from injured reserve in time to start against the Canucks, not that it will matter much who's in the crease if the Avalanche don't clean up their sloppy act soon.