An Embarrassing Loss, a Frustrated Bednar, and Plenty of Questions: Avalanche Takeaways

The Colorado Avalanche won three straight games and appeared to be finding their rhythm. Then they went to Columbus and got embarrassed 7-2 by the Blue Jackets.

Unfortunately, that's becoming a familiar story with this team. A good stretch of hockey is followed by a performance that makes you wonder how the same group of players can look so completely different from one night to the next.

This time, however, head coach Jared Bednar made it clear that he's running out of patience.

According to The Denver Gazette's Evan Rawal, Bednar was visibly frustrated following Tuesday night's loss. The Avalanche have been patient with the team's early-season struggles, but that approach may be changing.

"This game's showing up too much for me. There has to be a line. We're 20% through the season, so it's not a small window."

Bednar is right. 16 games isn't a massive sample, but it's not a small one, either. At some point, the early-season excuse starts to lose its weight, especially when the same problems keep showing up.

Of Colorado's six losses this season, you could make a pretty compelling argument that four have been complete blowouts. The road record is another concern. The Avalanche are 3-5 away from home through eight games, meaning they've lost more road games than they've won. And it's not necessarily the losses themselves that are concerning. It's how frequently those losses turn into complete disasters.

The Avalanche have shown they can be a dominant team. They've also shown they can completely fall apart. There doesn't seem to be much middle ground.

Bednar said at the beginning of the season that he wanted to change his approach, particularly when it came to being more involved with the younger players. T.J. Hughes has been playing great, but the bigger issue is that some of the same mistakes continue to show up. These aren't necessarily new problems. Colorado has been dealing with many of them for several seasons.

Bednar is saying the right things, but eventually, something has to change on the ice. Unless he turns into Rick Bowness overnight and starts hammering the message home to these players, we're probably going to keep seeing performances like Tuesday night.

The Avalanche have had a tendency to get off to sleepy starts on the road, and Tuesday night in Columbus was another example.

The Blue Jackets scored just 28 seconds into the game after Charlie Coyle wrapped a pass around the net and Mathieu Olivier was able to crush a shot past Scott Wedgewood, completely unchallenged in front of the net. Just like that, Colorado was down 1-0 before it had a chance to settle into the game.

Unfortunately, that was only the beginning of Colorado's defensive struggles.

The Avalanche continued to look disorganized in front of Wedgewood throughout the opening period. At one point, Columbus had a 4-on-1 rush. You think a 2-on-1 is bad? Add two more guys. And somehow, Colorado's 41-year-old defender Brent Burns ended up being the one who broke up the play. What are we doing?

Colorado also took a too-many-men-on-the-ice penalty in the opening frame, its fourth such infraction of the season.

The defensive breakdowns eventually caught up with the Avalanche in a big way. Wedgewood allowed four goals on nine shots before being pulled near the halfway point of the second period. And while the numbers certainly weren't pretty, he was left out to dry on far too many occasions.

Wedgewood didn't sugarcoat his performance afterward, either. When asked by The Denver Gazette's Evan Rawal about his night, the veteran goaltender offered a blunt assessment: "Sh*t. Not good."

The first goal was a pretty egregious example, but the fourth was just as bad. Cole Sillinger was able to get two healthy whacks at a rebound because three Colorado players were practically standing in the same area of the ice. There was nobody in position to challenge him, and Sillinger eventually poked his third opportunity past Wedgewood.

Pulling Wedgewood for Mackenzie Blackwood didn't change much, either.

Blackwood allowed three goals on 15 shots in relief, and the defensive issues in front of him remained largely unchanged.

The first goal came after another defensive disaster, with former Avalanche forward Charlie Coyle left completely alone at the doorstep. Sam Malinski was nowhere to be found, and when the rebound fell onto Coyle's stick, there was nobody remotely close enough to challenge him.

Then, of course, there was Valeri Nichushkin. In his first matchup against Colorado since being traded in the offseason, Nichushkin powered his way past the Avalanche defense and scored on the power play.

If you were a former Avalanche player, it was a pretty good night at Nationwide Arena. Coyle finished with a four-point night, while Nichushkin had a goal and an assist. Neither needed to do anything particularly extraordinary to expose Colorado's defensive problems.

Different goaltender, same problems.

For as bad as Colorado was defensively, the offense still showed flashes of what makes this team so dangerous.

After failing to cover Olivier on the opening goal, Cale Makar got one back for Colorado with his fourth goal of the season. Nathan MacKinnon threaded a perfect pass through the defense, finding Makar in the seam for a finish past Cam Talbot.

Nazem Kadri also converted on a 5-on-3 power play in the second period, giving Colorado its second goal of the night.

The Avalanche actually finished with 29 shots on goal compared to Columbus' 24, so it's not as though they were completely incapable of generating offense. The problem was everything happening at the other end of the ice.

When Colorado isn't busy getting punched in the mouth, it can still land some quick strikes. The problem is that we continue to see this team turn up the intensity offensively only after spending a significant portion of the game playing some absolutely pathetic hockey.

And while the Avalanche have enough offensive firepower to make up for defensive mistakes on certain nights, that isn't a sustainable way to win hockey games.

The Avalanche remind me of a world championship fighter who has all the knockout power in the world but absolutely no ability to block punches. Every fight turns into a life-or-death bloodbath that either ends with a spectacular knockout or a complete beatdown in the other direction.

That's not a sustainable formula for a team with Colorado's expectations. Bednar knows it, and his comments after Tuesday night's loss suggest he's reaching a point where patience alone isn't going to cut it.