|
Bad penalties, poor penalty killing make for a lethal combination |
|
|
Rick Sadowski
 Colorado Avalanche Blogger •Avalanche Insider • RSS
• Archive
• CONTACT
|
|
|
It’s bad enough to take dumb penalties, worse when you fail to kill them off.
It’s been a recurring issue with the Avalanche, who average an NHL-high 10 minutes in penalties per game and rank 28th (out of 31 teams) with a 76 percent success rate.
The lack of discipline and lousy penalty killing is, well, killing the Avalanche, who will need a near miraculous run in the remaining 26 games to sneak into the playoffs.
It was more of the same Tuesday in a 5-2 loss to Toronto at the Pepsi Center, where the Avalanche has a 10-11-5 record and has fallen to 10th place in the Western Conference with a 22-23-11 record and 55 points.
While they are "only" four points behind Minnesota for the second wild card playoff position, they have four fewer regulation/overtime wins and also trail Vancouver and Arizona. Last-place Anaheim also is a mere four points behind the Avalanche.
That 1-10 overtime record – the Avalanche also lost its only shootout – certainly isn’t helping.
The Avalanche will take an eight-game losing streak (0-5-3) into Thursday’s game in Winnipeg, their longest since losing nine in a row (0-8-1) Jan. 12-Feb. 1, 2017. They’ve been outscored 35-16 in the streak, allowing at least four goals in seven of the eight games.
Colorado has given up at least one power-play goal in six of the eight games, nine power-play goals overall in 33 shorthanded situations, an awful 72.7 percent.
Two penalties in the second period – along with the inability to kill them – cost the Avalanche any chance against the Maple Leafs.
The game was tied 1-1 when, following a series of Avalanche turnovers and failures to clear the zone, Tyson Barrie tripped Zach Hyman behind the Colorado net. Forty-nine seconds later, Austin Matthews converted John Tavares’ pass through the goalmouth to put the Leafs ahead.
Exactly one minute later, J.T. Compher was assessed a double-minor for high-sticking Travis Dermott “200 feet away from the play,” coach Jared Bednar said after the game.
It took Toronto 27 seconds to take a 3-1 lead on a goal by Nazem Kadri and 22 seconds after that for Kasperi Kapanen to make it 4-1.
Bednar replaced goalie Semyon Varlamov with Philipp Grubauer at that point, but he absolved Varlamov of all blame.
“I pulled him simply because it’s been a while since Grubi got in the net and tried to spark our team," he said. "That was not a goalie pull, but he was great and Varly was pretty darned good too.”
The Leafs finished 3-of-6 on power plays for the game after going 1-of-18 in the previous six games.
Bednar spoke with Compher, who hasn’t made a habit of taking unnecessary penalties.
“No. 1, I asked him how he felt about it,” Bednar told reporters Wednesday. “Obviously, he was apologetic and he took ownership. For me, it was another instance or situation where it cost us a hockey game, whether it’s a bad penalty that we control like that one or a repeated mistake, and the message has been similar.
“You want to make sure the players are aware of it, make sure they’re taking ownership of it, and you want to make sure they’re not going to do it again. My message to J.T. was he owes us his best play here coming up. He’s got to make it up to our team.
“We all make mistakes, but he … I liked what he said. I like the fact that he took ownership for it, but the whole ‘my bad’ thing, it’s got to go away. We got to eliminate mistakes, not apologize for it after it happens.”
Join the Discussion:
»