It wasn’t the debut the Avalanche were hoping for from newly acquired goaltender Jonas Johansson on Tuesday.
Johansson surrendered two goals on the first three shots and all three shots he faced in the shootout as the Avalanche blew a two-goal lead in the third period, falling to the Arizona Coyotes 5-4 at Gila River Arena.
Colorado’s seven-game winning streak ended but their point streak reached eight games.
Johansson made 28 saves. The top line of Nathan MacKinnon, Mikko Rantanen, and Gabe Landeskog and depth forward Valeri Nichushkin scored consecutive goals for the Avs, who played in their first shootout in more than a year (Feb. 22, 2020). Colorado trailed 2-0 then scored four straight goals before losing its lead in the third period.
The slow start was reminiscent of Monday’s matchup against the Coyotes. Expect this time the Avs fell behind.
“We want to come out and have a great start every single game,” Landeskog said. “But for whatever reason we’ve come out and had a little bit of a sluggish start both yesterday and today. Nonetheless, we tie it up and even take the lead going into the third so we forget about the first 10 minutes and move on after that.”
The Avalanche had ample chances to win the game before the shootout. They had power-play opportunities late in the third period and in overtime but were unable to capitalize. Arizona goalie Adin Hill made a magnificent two-pad stack save on Colorado’s Cale Makar in overtime — one of his 35 saves — to help the Coyotes kill the penalty.
“Hill made an amazing stop, a two-pad stack on Cale,” Landeskog said. “When you have a two-minute power play in overtime, 4-on-3, you want to score. We wanted to score on that power play we had with three minutes left in the third period as well but we didn’t do that.”
MacKinnon scored his 200th career goal with 11 seconds left in the second period to put the Avs ahead 3-2. He had previously assisted on two other goals, one of which came on the power play.
His late-period goal, the latest the Avs have scored in any period this year, also broke a club record for consecutive periods with a goal (19). That streak was extended to 20 in the third period but ended after a scoreless overtime.
Nichushkin made it 4-2 after tipping in a point shot from defenseman Ryan Graves. Colorado was in a good position, holding a multi-goal lead. But Arizona wasted little time making a comeback. They made it 4-3 just over a minute later and added the tying goal from Phil Kessel 2:03 after that.
“They made a hard push and we didn’t handle it very well,” Bednar said. “I thought we had a handful of guys that struggled with the puck tonight and they get back and square it.”
Byram injured: Defenseman Bo Byram did not play (lower-body). Bednar said it’s a day-to-day injury and he’ll have more information on Wednesday. He also said he was unaware of when the injury happened or what it was specifically.
Vegas awaits: Colorado returns home to commence a six-game homestand Thursday, starting with two games against the Vegas Golden Knights. Vegas leads the Avalanche by two points for first in the West Division with a game in hand.
Point streaks: MacKinnon (five goals, 13 points) and Rantanen (seven goals, 13 points) each extended their point streaks to seven games. Landeskog’s (three goals, 11 points) is at six.
Nichushkin, who started the season slow offensively, is riding a three-game point streak (two goals, four points) and has 10 points (five goals) in his last 11 games.