Colorado Avalanche go 0-2 on their trip to Sweden

Another night in Sweden, another loss for the Colorado Avalanche. Just 24-hours before, the Ottawa Senators won a one-goal game in which they badly outshot the Avalanche - today more of the same. Except this time, the Avs didn't send the game to overtime to salvage a point.

In the 4-3 loss today, the Avalanche gave up 40 shots to the Senators - that’s three more shots than the Avs had in the entire two-game series. It’s simple, Colorado is not going to win very many games when they are outshot as badly as they were this weekend.

Last night it was Mark Stone, today it was two goals from Mike Hoffman that did the damage for the Senators. The fact that Matt Duchene was able to record his first point as a member of the Senators just adds insult to injury.

Despite being badly outshot, the team carried a lead into the third period, but unfortunately, they were able to hold on. Jonathan Bernier let in a terrible goal, but that was far from the only reason the Avs were unable to hold on for the win.

The Recap

The first period was a rather uneventful one. A little bit of back and forth with very little dangerous action for large chunks of the period. The Avs were able to jump out to an early lead as Blake Comeau made it 1-0 with a very nice shorthanded goal on Mike Condon, 13 minutes into the opening frame.

The only other real eventful play of the period came with a little over a minute to play when Chris Brigras went to the box for hooking. It was eventful because, on that power play, the Senators were able to tie the game up only 12 seconds into the next period. The goal by Hoffman came off of a bad bounce that made Jonathan Bernier look very very silly.

A few minutes later, the Avalanche were able to get a powerplay goal of their own as Alex Kerfoot knocked in his seventh of the season to regain the lead. Unfortunately, the lead didn’t last long as Mark Stone tied it at 2-2 only 42 seconds later.

The scoring came fast and furious in the middle of the second period as Sven Andrighetto gave the Avs a 3-2 lead making it three goals in a two-minute span.

Guy Boucher had seen enough as he then pulled Mike Condon in favor of Craig Anderson who came in and shut the door the rest of the way - through it’s not like he had a whole lot to do. The Avalanche were unable to record a shot on net for the final eight minutes of the second period and although they went into the third with a 3-2 lead, the Senators had more than twice as many shots on net. Something was going to have to change to hold on to this lead.

Unfortunately, nothing did.

The Sens tied the game at three as Swedish born Johnny Oduya got his second of the season. Then, about five minutes later, Mike Hoffman put Ottawa ahead for good with his second of the game on the powerplay.

The Avalanche were not able to mount any sort of comeback as they could only muster five shots in the third period and dropped to 0-2 on this trip to Sweden.

Observations

• Alex Kerfoot is now tied for second in rookie scoring with Andrian Kempe of the Los Angeles Kings
• Samuel Girard continues to impress. He was one of the Avs bed defenders again today.
• One bright spot for the Avs is that the powerplay seems to be clicking right now. They got another two goals with the man advantage and are looking a lot better than a season ago.
• Wilson, Nieto and Bourque combined for zero shots on net. We expect of them out of the lineup next game as Tyson Jost seems ready to return from injury, and Vladislav Kamanev is set to be called up from the AHL.
• Bednar would also do well to sub in A.J. Greer for Rocco Grimaldi in order to bring a bit of a jolt to the lineup.

Up Next

The Avalanche will travel back to Denver where they will have another four full days off to work on things with this new lineup. Their next game action will be Thursday evening at home against the Washington Capitals.