Slow start saw Avalanche suffer loss to Lightning – The Denver Post

On Wednesday night, the severely undermanned Colorado Avalanche played about as well as expected for 54 minutes, given the circumstances.

However, that came after the first six minutes were about as bad as anyone could imagine. The big guns on the Tampa Bay Lightning had a great night and the Avs’ setback was met by one of the best goaltenders in the world in a 5-2 loss at Ball Arena.

Nikita Kucherov, Brayden Point and Jake Guentzel combined for three goals and seven points for the Lightning. After allowing three goals on the first five shots, new Colorado goalkeeper Kaapo Kahkonen found his way and finished with 16 saves.

“Against teams with such high skills, you expect them to make plays like that, but it’s still not easy to make saves on those plays,” Kahkonen said. “Especially this early. But it’s… what are you going to do? You just play. You try to stop the next puck and try to get into a rhythm.”

The Avs have been without Artturi Lehkonen (shoulder), Valeri Nichushkin (suspension) and Gabe Landeskog (knee) all season, and Jonathan Drouin (upper body) joined them after being injured in the opener against Vegas. Before this game, the situation got even worse for Colorado.

Ross Colton will be out six to eight weeks with a broken foot after blocking a shot against Chicago on Monday night, Avs coach Jared Bednar said Wednesday morning. Miles Wood is also out for seven to 10 days due to an upper-body injury that he is trying to work through.

“Our (missing) payroll is outrageous,” Nathan MacKinnon said. They are not excuses. They’re just facts. I like how we play overall. When the boys come back, I think we will get better results if we continue to do this, but that is not the point right now.”

While there were some positives to build on for a team missing six of its top-10 forwards, the Avs trailed 3-0 before the first TV timeout.

Tampa Bay coach Jon Cooper has an assist on each of the first two Lightning goals. Both times, the play started with his third line against Colorado’s makeshift third line, which also included defenseman Oliver Kylington.

The Lightning gained control of the puck and made a quick change on the top line, then quickly scored in the same manner. Point took the puck behind the Colorado net and found Kucherov wide open in the slot for a 61-second one-timer.

Kucherov took the puck behind his own net at the start of his next shift and went coast to coast. He went behind the net like Point, but sent a reverse pass back to where he came from. Guentzel waited at the right post for an easy one at 3:36 for a 2-0 lead.

“They’re awareness mistakes,” Avs coach Jared Bednar said. “Young players just don’t read it fast enough and don’t end up in the right places.

“Overall I thought we were involved in the game. We played pretty hard, played pretty well. Definitely had a better second than the first, and the third was pretty good again. It wasn’t easy for us offensively either.”

Sam Malinski fell near the offensive blue line and tried to swipe for the puck, but the end result was a 3-on-1 the other way and a highlight-reel goal for Tampa Bay. Conor Geekie started the passing game and then finished it at 5:32 of the first after all three forwards touched the puck in quick succession.

The Avs got into the game after the opening flurry. Ivan Ivan scored his second career goal to cut Tampa Bay’s lead to 3-1 at 14:56 of the first.

Ivan tipped a point shot from Cale Makar past Lightning netminder Andrei Vasilevskiy from the high slot. He replaced Ross Colton in that position and both of his goals coincided with PP1.

Colorado’s first six minutes of the second period went very well, except the Avs couldn’t beat Vasilevskiy. Then, with a scrambled Avs line on the ice after a Colorado power play ended, the big guns of Tampa Bay celebrated again.