'You've got to be ready to play 60 minutes': Avalanche use loss to Canadiens as lesson
The Avalanche suffered the first loss in their last 10 games on Tuesday night but are not dwelling on the defeat.
Head coach Jared Bednar said it is important for his team to move on quickly after a loss and stay mentally prepared for the next game. It is even more imperative for the team to do that this time of year as it gets closer to the playoffs.
"It's important, for sure. The defensive side of the game because that's how you — if you want to win four rounds you've got to be really good defensive team," forward Mikko Rantanen said. "We know that's the first priority of our team. We know the offense is going to come and we have a lot of firepower so the defensive habits and the way we play has just got to be at a high level."
The Avalanche were on nine-game win streak which made the 2-1 loss to the Montreal Canadiens sting a bit more, especially since they are an opponent with no playoff hopes.
"At what point we are in the season, you don't want to dwell on that stuff and think about it too much. We watched video to see what we did wrong and what went wrong a little bit in that game, and like Jared (Bednar) said we move on to a new challenge, new game," Drouin said. "(It's) that time of the year, that's what you have to be good at. You're going to have some bad performances maybe sometimes, but you got to move on and get ready for the next game."
The team as a whole said the loss was frustrating and defenseman Cale Makar said it was not prepared for how well the Canadiens played. But there was one impactful lesson the team received from the defeat.
"You've got to be ready to play 60 minutes. The game against Pitt (Pittsburgh Penguins), the night before it — didn't have a great first period, dug ourselves a hole, started scratching and clawing our way back and played pretty well — really well in the second period and found ourselves down four nothing," Bednar said. "So we outscored some of our issues from the start of the game in that game but you can't rely on doing that every night. We run into a really good goaltender the other night and (Canadiens goaltender Sam) Montembeault and they block a lot of shots even though we're getting some really good looks and dangerous looks. We didn't outscore our issues from the first period and it cost us the game."
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