The Colorado Avalanche didn’t make it to the fifth period of this season before encountering a goaltending crisis.
Alexandar Georgiev was pulled from a second straight start, and Justus Annunen was again not the answer in relief. The result was a 6-4 loss Saturday night in the home opener at Ball Arena, and an ugly 0-2 start to the 2024-25 campaign.
“I get that there’s a level of frustration, but (Georgiev) … he’s our guy,” Avalanche coach Jared Bednar said. “He’s our starter. I have full faith that he has the ability, the talent, the work ethic to bounce back and win us hockey games. It’s a mental game right now, right? So we’ll regroup, and we have other areas of our game, too, that have to be better.”
Even the looming arrival of a third goalie to the mix after the Avs claimed Kaapo Kahkonen on waivers didn’t spur improvement from the two guys currently on the roster. Georgiev allowed three goals on nine shots, Annunen yielded two on his first eight minutes of relief and Colorado spent the second half of this contest chasing — just like the Avs did all night Wednesday in an 8-4 loss against the Vegas Golden Knights.
It was certainly a frustrating night for the home side. Despite all of the issues, the Avs made it a 5-4 game late, a penalty on Casey Mittelstadt effectively ended the game. Nathan MacKinnon, who had two points for the second straight game to start the season, was assessed a 10-minute misconduct after an empty-net goal against and smashed his stick on the bench before exiting.
“I get it,” Bednar said of MacKinnon’s outburst. “We’re getting a penalty where I thought maybe it should be their penalty. Game’s over, and he let it out. I didn’t see a lot of frustration. I felt the heaviness and like, everyone is trying to do the right thing and play the right way.
“It’s a new group and trust needs to be built over time … you get frustrated when someone doesn’t make a play here and there, but we’ve got to channel that better than we are right now.”
Columbus scored twice on its first three shots of the game to put Colorado in an early hole. Blue Jackets defenseman Zach Werenski got behind Josh Manson for a redirect on a rush play that started below the Colorado goal line to make it 1-0 at 6:38 of the opening period.
That one wasn’t on Georgiev. The next two were.
Kent Johnson collected the puck on his own end and weaved from left to right while both teams were changing. His unscreened shot from the right circle beat Georgiev to the short side 67 seconds after the Werenski tally.
MacKinnon scored with eight seconds left in the first period to pull the Avalanche within a goal. His rebound on the power play also gave rookie Ivan Ivan his first NHL point.
Georgiev yielded a goal on the first shot he faced to start the second period, and his night was done. Adam Fantilli beat him with another lefthanded shot from the right circle after collecting the puck on his half of the ice at 1:56 of the second.
Calvin de Haan was visibly upset with Georgiev on the ice. Miles Wood went to the bench and smashed his stick. Bednar wasted no time telling Annunen to warm up.
Wood collected himself and scored 15 seconds later. He put one home from the slot and then slammed the glass behind the Columbus net after making it a 3-2 game.
Colorado struck again on the power play at 3:42 of the second, just 11 seconds after drawing the penalty. Mittelstadt collected the deflected point shot from Cale Makar and shoveled in his second backhanded goal near the right post in as many games.
Suddenly, the Avs were right back in it. Just like opening night in Las Vegas, that didn’t last long.
Annunen did not start off any better in the net. He got a piece of the first shot he faced from Kirill Marchenko at 4:33 of the second, but not enough of it, and Columbus went back in front.
The Blue Jackets made it a 5-3 lead before the halfway point. Yegor Chinakhov finished a 2-on-2 rush play with Sean Monahan at 9:49, and the Avalanche had officially allowed 13 goals in the first 100 minutes of its season.
Until someone starts stopping the puck, it will be hard to evaluate where the rest of the team is. It was going to be a challenging October, given the guys who are missing, but this start has been pretty close to a worst-case scenario.
“Definitely some things we can clean up, but I think there’s also a lot of parts of our game that we can build on,” Mittelstadt said. “The main thing is we’re not going to overreact two games in. We know we can go on runs and we’ve definitely got a team that can get a lot of wins.”
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