DENVER — Expected goals don’t always tell the full story, but they did in the Avalanche’s 6-4 loss to the Columbus Blue Jackets at Ball Arena on Saturday. Colorado outplayed the Jackets for several parts of its home opener and had an expected goals lead of 4.09 compared to Columbus’ 1.69.
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The difference? Goaltending. Alexandar Georgiev again stumbled out of the gate and looked like a shell of the netminder he was last year, let alone two years ago. For the second straight game, the Avs’ starter was yanked. But the team doesn’t plan to give up on him just yet. At least that’s the way head coach Jared Bednar made it sound.
“I have full faith that he has the ability, the talent, and the work ethic to bounce back and win us hockey games,” Bednar said. “It’s a mental battle right now.”
Does Bednar truly believe that? Maybe. Albeit some parts of his postgame responses regarding the goalie seemed rehearsed. But the reality is, the Avs need Georgiev to bounce back. Justus Annunen isn’t ready to shoulder the load and until they know what they’ve got in Kaapo Kahkonen, it’s tough to consider the mystery box they picked up off waivers as the savior. The team needs Georgiev to be better, and Bednar just might be doing everything he can to give his starting goalie a wake-up call.
Nathan MacKinnon, Casey Mittelstadt, Miles Wood, and Ross Colton scored for the Avs, who scored four goals in each of the first two games but came away with zero points.
Colorado has surrendered a whopping 14 goals in two games — two more than it did during its 6-0-0 start to the 2023-24 season.
“We’re not going to overreact, we’re two games in,” Mittelstadt said. “We know we can go on runs and we’ve definitely got a team that could get a lot of wins.”
On one hand, it’s a great sign that the team continues to score despite missing Valeri Nichushkin, Artturi Lehkonen, Jonathan Drouin, and Gabriel Landeskog. But on the other hand, the Avs need to clean up their defensive game if the goaltending is going to struggle the way it has.
The Jackets opened the scoring and quickly added a second tally before the first period was halfway through. MacKinnon pulled the Avs back within one before the break with a power-play goal at 19:52.
In the second, Adam Fantilli put a third puck past Georgiev, leading to the goaltending change. Bednar again went to Annunen.
“It’s a couple rough starts in a row,” Bednar said. “But I have to do what I think is best for our team, not for Georgie.”
The Avs suddenly were reinvigorated after the goalie change. On the very next shift, Wood needed just 15 seconds to score before Mittelstadt added his second in two games just 91 seconds later. Colorado had two goals before Annunen faced a shot.
But the Jackets beat him when they did put that first shot on him. Kirill Marchenko made it 4-3 less than a minute after the tying goal and Yegor Chinakhov put them back up by two with 1:20 left in the period.
Colorado controlled the third period and had several opportunities to score. Eventually, Colton finished a sweet feed from MacKinnon with the goalie pulled to make it 5-4. But the Jackets put the game away with a late empty netter following a penalty on Mittelstadt with 38.6 seconds remaining.
Mittelstadt, who was tracing back to keep Columbus from adding another empty-net goal, was called for holding during a center-ice battle with Mikael Pyyhtia. At first, it looked like the call was on the Jackets’ forward.
“I didn’t think I held him,” Mittelstadt said about the penalty. “I have to watch it again. Refs, they’re human beings too. It is what it is.”
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