Nothing good came out of the Avalanche's shutout loss to the team they will face in the first round of the Stanley Cup Playoffs.
The Colorado Avalanche were shut out 7-0 in an important playoff preview game against the Winnipeg Jets where the team was "just not good enough."
Avs starting goaltender Alexandar Georgiev was beaten four times in the first period and replaced by Justus Annunen.
"I don't know, it's disappointing. Bottom line is you get behind on a team like that it's going to be really hard to come back. That's just the nature of the beast with a team like that," Andrew Cogliano said after the loss. "They checked hard, we didn't. They got all their offense from mistakes we made — which were a lot of mental mistakes, a lot of bad reads, a lot of things we haven't done in a long time ... we let our goalies out to dry a lot."
While the Avalanche typically turn the page and move on quickly from a loss to focus on the next game, this one stung and will hang around a bit.
“Well it should be in our memory. It’s embarrassing. In our building, to lose 7-0 in a game that means a lot for both teams, especially for us," Devon Toews said. "We put on a poor performance for our fans and now it’s a little bit more difficult. Probably going to have to start on the road, that’s the way it looks now. We had the opportunity to play on home ice and we didn’t show up.”
The mental mistakes made in the game were uncharacteristic of the Avalanche team that has earned more than 100 points this season. Unlike their loss to the Dallas Stars last week, head coach Jared Bednar said there were no reasons for any kind of fatigue in the defeat.
"I felt like we got outcompeted in the first. Some of the decisions that you make when you're competing and you're skating and your working — you cover up mistakes," Bednar said. "When you're not and you're not competing you make a bad mistake or a bad read someplace that never gets covered up and ends up in the back your net and there's just way too many easy goals."
The Avalanche do not have much time to regroup and reset after the devastating loss as they face off against the Vegas Golden Knights at 1:30 p.m. MT on Sunday.
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