Avalanche continue to eschew wins, lose 4-2 to the Stars

If you expected the Colorado Avalanche to win tonight’s matchup against the Dallas Stars, perhaps your expectations are unreasonable. Did you ever think about that, guy?

That’s right. You probably didn’t.

Devin Shore started off the scoring this evening, pretty much because it had to be a player on Dallas’ roster, right? Carl Soderberg failed to clear a puck up the boards and a swarm of Stars were able to attack the Avalanche goal while Colorado was heading up ice. Shore ended up with the puck wide open in the slot and fired home a wrist shot to put Dallas up 1-0 just over five minutes into the first period.

Next up was Tyler Seguin, because he is generally known to score goals. The Stars took the puck in the neutral zone and moved it up ice with numbers. Despite reasonable attempts by the Avalanche defense to dissuade the Stars from scoring, no forwards got back on the back check and Tyler Seguin (who is known to score goals) ended up wide open in left circle and beat Calving Pickard short-side to put Dallas up 2-0.

At this point, the Avalanche decided to give brief hope to their fans when Nathan MacKinnon brought the puck up ice and found Tyson Barrie pushing the play. He dished to Matt Duchene, who missed his initial shot but buried the rebound for his 13th goal on the season to draw the game to 2-1.

In the second period, Jamie Oleksiak would end up putting the game out of reach for the Avalanche. He caught the puck harmlessly enough near the goal line in the Avalanche goal, but because no one moved over to guard him, he was able to load up a wrist shot that beat Pickard short side (again) over his glove-side shoulder.

The Avalanche would draw the game to one again early in the third immediately following a power play. Tyson Barrie unloaded a wrist shot from the point that reached the net and rebounded in the slot to an awaiting Mikhail Grigorenko, who moved the puck to his backhand and flipped it in the net for his fourth goal on the season.

The close nature of the game led to an empty net situation late in the third period. However, with Pickard on the bench and the Avalanche with a extra attacker, they would be unable to muster any additional scoring. Like too many other six-on-five situations this season, Colorado would end up giving up a goal themselves, this time to Tyler Seguin for his second on the evening.

Final score? 4-2. The Avalanche have now lost 18 of its last 20 games, which feels super good. Yup, pretty much the most awesome time to be an Avalanche fans ever.