The Avalanche have suffered tough losses before and have proven to be able to let it go and move on to win the next game.
The Colorado Avalanche are looking to bounce back against the St. Louis Blues — who have won their last three games — coming off of a disappointing loss to the Arizona Coyotes on Wednesday.
The Avs have repeatedly said and shown how they bounce back after tough losses — move past it and gear up for the next matchup. But how exactly will they do that against the Blues?
"It's giving the players clarity on what we felt didn't go well, in say — the third period in Arizona — what we need to improve upon. And it's not necessarily things that take a ton of practice time," head coach Jared Bednar said after an optional morning skate.
Most of the defense was on the ice at Enterprise Center Friday morning, except Cale Makar and Devon Toews. Samuel Girard participated in a black jersey but will not play, according to Guerilla Sports reporter Jess Montano. Valeri Nichushkin and Logan O'Connor skated, but Nathan MacKinnon and Mikko Rantanen opted out.
Bowen Byram said he watched video of how he played to figure out his mistakes and what to correct after the loss then moved on. But the breakdown in the third period at Mullett Arena was more than just a few players — it was a group effort.
"It's a hard thing to describe. All of a sudden the momentum shifts and you feel like you're just struggling to even get the puck out of your zone — it's a weird thing when you feel like you were kind of dominating the first half of the game," Byram told The Hockey News' Colleen Flynn. "But we also did it to ourselves. We made some bad decisions with the puck — turnovers that led to goals, missed coverage that led to goals. I think it was a lot of self-inflicted wounds that wound up us only getting one point out of that game. Definitely not ideal, but like I said, learn from it and move on."
Bednar said his team's maturity helps to understand what went wrong and work quickly to fix it; as immediate as the matchup against the Blues.
"This isn't a long-term thing. When you give them the clarity, they're willing to do it," Bednar said. "They're hard-working guys and they want to win and they're driven to win, so just getting everyone on the same page again and resetting and understanding what the challenges St. Louis brings and really being focused and dialed in to what we need to do to win tonight."
Even for young players like Sam Malinski, the Avalanche's coaching staff has helped develop that work ethic and mature approach to the game.
"It means a lot just that he (Bednar) trusts me, and he puts me out there on the ice. He's been really straight forward on telling me what I need to improve on," Malinski said. "That goes for all the coaching staff. They've all really helped me out through video and on the bench coaching and stuff like that. It's been good."
Projected lineup
Bednar said Ross Colton will be a game-time decision after he took a puck to the knee in the Arizona game.
Since there was not full participation for morning skate, the projected lineup is an assumption that Colton will not play and Ben Meyers will fill in after being called up from the Colorado Eagles on Thursday.
Valeri Nichushkin — Nathan MacKinnon — Mikko Rantanen
Miles Wood — Ryan Johansen — Jonathan Drouin
Andrew Cogliano — Fredrik Olofsson — Logan O’Connor
Kurtis MacDermid — Ben Meyers — Joel Kiviranta
Devon Toews — Cale Makar
Bowen Byram — Josh Manson
Jack Johnson — Sam Malinski
Alexandar Georgiev
Ivan Prosvetov
This is the third of four matchups between the Central Division rivals of which each has a win at Ball Arena. The puck drops at 6 p.m. MT.
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