Colorado didn't bring their "A" game Tuesday night, and the Seattle Kraken used that to their advantage in the 3-1 loss for the first game of the Stanley Cup playoff series.
DENVER – The Colorado Avalanche didn’t play their best hockey in Game 1 against the Seattle Kraken and it cost them a 3-1 loss Tuesday night.
“I didn’t like our execution, that was probably the first thing that stood out to me. In a lot of areas of the ice, not just on our attack,” Avalanche head coach Jared Bednar said.
After a shaky start to the game with a Devon Toews turnover that resulted in the first Kraken goal scored by Eeli Tolvanen at 3:26 in the first, the Avalanche settled down and got to work.
Nathan MacKinnon shoveled a cross-ice pass to Mikko Rantanen in front of the net who put it past Philipp Grubauer for the only Avalanche goal of the night at 12:35 in the first. But Colorado just couldn’t control the puck and made some bad decisions which the Kraken capitalized on.
“I think we weren’t sharp enough mentally. Physically, I think we were there. We were playing hard, it’s just we got to make plays with our hard forecheck there,” Nathan MacKinnon said after the loss. “They are a tough team to create [against]. They come hard, but we still had the puck on our stick a lot to execute. For whatever reason, we couldn’t make those plays.”
Kraken forward Alexander Wennberg took a pass from Jaden Schwartz to rip one over Alexandar Georgiev’s shoulder at 1:20 in the second, which ended up being the game-winning goal.
While Georgiev stopped 32 of 35 shots, his team played a bit sloppy with missed passes and poor execution. But the Avalanche goaltender seemed ready to put it past him and move on.
“The guys are mentally tough so I’m sure we’ll shake it off and learn from the mistakes and be better next game,” Georgiev said.
Bednar said he liked some of the intensity the team played with at times, but that he wasn't happy with the overall production of his group as a whole.
“I think just overall it felt like sometimes at points during the game, we didn’t have our legs, especially in the D zone … especially us as a D core just weren’t quite there,” Cale Makar said. “It’s one game, and we move on and learn from it. I think there’s a lot of good things that happened but at the same time, every individual knows that we can give a lot more here.”
After a scramble for the puck behind the net, Kraken forward Morgan Geekie got it on his tape and beat Georgiev at 4:03 in the third. The Avalanche had a few good looks in the period but couldn’t get any past Grubauer.
“I think the maturity in our group, it’s a playoff series, that game’s now behind us, there’s no changing it so you just got to prepare for what’s ahead. All our focus will be on Thursday night and getting a win,” Bowen Byram said.
Colorado has to regroup and tighten up their play in order to get through this series against the buttoned-up checking game the Kraken brought Tuesday night.
Game 2 is Thursday night at Ball Arena with a puck-drop time of 7:30 p.m.