Heading into the current homestand the Colorado Avalanche held a 7-1-1 home record. Now, four games into the five-game stand, the Avalanche have already lost three, most recently at the hands of the Dallas Stars who came in to Pepsi Center and dominated the Avs by a final score of 7-2. The loss is the first of back-to-back home losses this season for Colorado.
“You have to look at it like a must-win,” Avalanche forward Mikko Rantanen said looking ahead at the fifth and final game of the homestand. “It’s like a playoff game for us. It’s a five-game homestand, we are 1-3 right now. We have to win the last game.”
Tyler Seguin put the Stars up early scoring each of Dallas’ first two goals and making the score 2-0 to end the first period.
“The first period, we were down two; that can’t happen it’s at home ice,” Rantanen stated. “It was a tough first period, and I think that set the tone for the whole game.”
Mikko Rantanen scored a goal early in the second period to make the score 2-1. Rantanen’s goal came off a Nathan MacKinnon assist continuing the duo’s strong season from a point production standpoint as they have combined for a total of 48 points this year (15 goals, 33 assists).
The Avalanche were unable to ward off the Stars offense as they scored four goals on the first nine shots of the game.
Colorado found themselves down 4-1 and decided to make a change in net, pulling starter Jonathan Bernier and inserting Semyon Varlamov who ended up stopping 16 of Dallas’ 18 attempts he faced.
Blake Comeau netted his sixth goal of the year before the second period came to a close, giving Colorado a bit of hope heading into the third. However, Colorado was unable to score again and only managed to get eight shots on goal in the third period, while Dallas had eleven shots, scoring three including one empty-netter.
Colorado has played the last three games without its captain Gabe Landeskog, who has one more game left to serve of his four-game suspension.
Alternate captain Erik Johnson places Sunday’s loss on the shoulders of the remaining leaders in the dressing room.
“The onus is on the leadership,” Johsnon said. “We’ll take full responsibility for that because we have to make sure everyone is ready to play and everybody wasn’t ready to play tonight and that’s on us.”
The Avalanche have lost four of their last five games as they head in to the final game of the homestand which will be Tuesday against the NHL’s worst team currently, the Buffalo Sabres at 7 PM MST.
