Tonight, the Colorado Avalanche headed off to Music City to take on the Nashville Predators, who were on the second leg of a back-to-back. Colorado ultimately lost by a final score of 6-2, and we’ll take a look at all the action from toinght.
First Period
Nashville would open the scoring in this game with a power play goal from Filip Forsberg, who was left all alone in the slot, and that’s a guy who won’t miss a shot from that close very often, if at all.
Steven Stamkos would give the Predators a 2-0 lead on a really
flukey goal, which saw the puck bounce into the back of the net, and barely cross the goal line. At first it appeared Cale Makar made a heroic save, swatting the puck off the goal line but video review showed otherwise.
Second Period
Ryan O’Reilly made it 3-0 in the Predators’ favor next, as he was able to get a puck on net that bounced past Scott Wedgewood while on the power play.
The ex-player curse was alive and well tonight, as Jack Drury made it 4-0, Nashville, as he was able to wait out Wedgewood and score into an essentially empty net. This was the result after an especially long shift in the Avalanche defensive zone.
Forsberg would score his second power play goal of the night late in the second period, making it 5-0 Nashville, and all but securing the win for the Predators.
Colorado would finally get on the board with another goal from Artturi Lehkonen, as he continues to stay hot on the season with already his tenth goal on the year.
Third Period
It was a slight sign of life as Devon Toews would make it a 5-2 game early in the third period, as he was able to put a bit of a knuckle-puck past Annunen to give the Avs something to hopefully build off of.
Stamkos would finally get this game to its 6-2 final about halfway through the third period with his second goal of the night and fourth for the Predators on the power play.
Takeaways
In the long run and in a vacuum, this game won’t end up mattering all that much. That being said, when looking at the past few road games the Avs have played, like the Flyers game, this type of play starts to be a little concerning. It was said at the beginning of this recap, but Nashville was on the second leg of a back-to-back tonight, and they certainly didn’t look like that at all. If anything, Colorado looked like the ones on the second leg of a back-to-back instead; there was just little to no energy or effort from this team tonight on the whole, which is concerning. You’d think and hope that when you’re a team down by multiple goals in a hockey game, you would be trying to (in theory) get back into the game and win it by putting more pucks on net or shooting a lot more on the powerplay, and so on. Colorado mostly did the opposite of that tonight, which is again, a bit concerning at this point, to say the least, as this isn’t the first time they’ve looked like this in games where they’ve been down by multiple goals. As always, though, this was game 12 of 84 in the regular season. There’s still plenty of time for this team to figure it out, and I trust that they will, but not if these concerning habits continue later into the regular season.
Upcoming
The Colorado Avalanche welcome the New Jersey Devils to town on Wednesday, October 28. Puck drop will be at 7:00 p.m. MT.
