Avalanche continue home woes, fall to Coyotes 4-2

Colorado lost 4-2 this evening at home to a last place Arizona Coyotes team, despite having a second period lead, giving them their fifth loss in their last seven games and sending them into a tie with tonight’s opponent at the bottom of the Western Conference standings.

The team expertly executed one of their now-famous non-existent starts, allowing yet another goal less than a minute into the game. Tyson Barrie got a slap shot stuffed in the Coyotes end leading to an odd-man rush the other way and a seemingly harmless short side Jordan Martinook on Avs goalie Calvin Pickard. The puck squeezed by and Arizona took a 1-0 lead.

Finally, thirty-eight seconds in the second period, Colorado would manage to—yes, you heard correctly—score a goal at home. Mikhail Grigorenko would dish a backhand pass to Erik Johnson on an early power play, who would rip a wrister through traffic at the net. A well-timed Rene Bourque tip deflected the puck past Arizona goalie Louis Domingue to tie the game at one.

Even more surprising, the Avalanche would take an actual lead about six minutes later after Matt Duchene stripped the puck in the neutral zone and nudged it toward the Coyotes blue line for Nathan MacKinnon to pick up, skate to the left circle and uncork a filthy wrister to give his team to the lead and break out of his slump.

But then Arizona turned it on at the end of the second, giving up goals to Anthony DeAngelo, in his very first NHL game, and Max Domi barely a minute later. And if that wasn’t bad enough, Mikko Rantanen got called for a slashing penalty as time expired, giving the ‘Yotes a power play when they returned from the locker room.

....Which Jordan Martinook would promptly score on just eleven seconds after puck drop to give Arizona a 4-2 lead.

The game would end that way after a fairly listless third frame. Colorado will try and reverse their recent fortunes when they welcome the Winnipeg Jets on Friday.