Colorado got offense from its defensemen while its top blueliner didn't finish the last three minutes of regulation and was absent from the ice in overtime.

Defenseman Bowen Byram scored two goals and Cale Makar did not play in the final minutes of regulation in the 4-3 shootout loss to the Anaheim Ducks on Saturday night. 

Byram netted the first goal 36 seconds into the game, the quickest the Avalanche have scored a goal to start a game this season. He scored another at 11:01 in the first period. Ross Colton and Miles Wood assisted on his first, while Fredrik Olofsson and Josh Manson assisted on his second. 

"Nice to get a couple — help the team out, get a good start on the road," Byram told Altitude Sports' Katie Gaus after the first period. "There's some things we can clean up going forward. We'll talk about it and get ready to go again."

Devon Toews scored the Avs' third goal with less than a minute remaining in the first to make it 3-1. But Colorado broke down in the second and the Ducks capitalized with two goals and no answer.

"We're just not generating enough offense throughout a full game," Toews said after the loss. "We had a good first 20 we thought, doing a lot of really good things that we talked about and then we just kind of faded from there — didn't keep the pressure on and kind of just started to sit back and let them come at us."

There was no scoring in the third period which forced the game into overtime. No pucks got to the back of the net in the extra five, which led to a shootout. 

Cale Makar did not play in the overtime frame nor did he participate in the shootout. According to the Denver Post's Corey Masisak, head coach Jared Bednar said Makar was dealing with something which eliminated him from the last three minutes of regulation and the extra time. 

Anaheim's rookie Leo Carlsson scored the only goal in the shootout to break the Ducks' eight-game losing streak. 

Prosvetov made 33 saves in the SO loss while Anaheim's goaltender John Gibson stopped 34 shots in the game. 

Nathan MacKinnon extended his point-per-game streak to seven with an assist on Toews' goal. Valeri Nichushkin's streak ended as he didn't get on the scoresheet. 

Colorado will be right back at it Sunday with an early puck drop at 6 p.m. MT against the Los Angeles Kings.