Artturi Lehkonen taken to hospital after head-first crash into boards in Avs 4-3 loss to Kraken

Colorado played a hard, physical game Thursday night but fell short in the 4-3 loss to Seattle.

The Colorado Avalanche's 4-3 loss to the Seattle Kraken Thursday night wasn't due to a lack of effort as it was a hard-fought battle to the end. 

Nathan MacKinnon had three points but the Avalanche made some mistakes which cost them the win. 

"As a whole, that's the way I want our team to compete. We played hard. We weren't perfect — never going to be, but we did a nice job," head coach Jared Bednar said after the loss. 

Kraken forward Oliver Bjorkstrand scored his second of the night and the game-winner with less than 30 seconds left in the game. Jaden Scwartz and Matty Beniers notched the two other goals for Seattle while Philipp Grubauer made 23 saves.  

The scoresheet shows a loss for the Avs, but Cale Makar was proud of his team's effort.

"We deserved a better outcome. We battled a lot of elements tonight. Guys going down and our work ethic is top notch," Makar said. "Compete-wise we played to the best of our ability — some games it's not going to go your way and tonight was one of those. Overall I don't think today is something we can hang our head on." 

Bowen Byram and Valeri Nichushkin scored for Colorado and Ivan Prosvetov played solid in net for his second start this season. 

"He played really well again. There's a lot of things we can do to help him out tonight — couple of those chances are preventable for sure," Makar said about the Avs goaltender. "He made the saves that we needed him to and things we gave up are our fault more so than his." 

The game got more physical in the second period when Artturi Lehkonen went down head first into the boards after making contact with Kraken defenseman Jamie Oleksiak. He remained down on the ice in apparent pain before MacKinnon and an Avs trainer helped him down the tunnel. He was taken to the hospital as a precaution but the team said he was alert and able to move. 

Andrew Cogliano took a hit which instantly caused a reaction from Byram. He and Vince Dunn ended up dropping gloves and getting penalties but Byram got an extra two for roughing. 

Cogliano took another hit in the third period and left the game briefly but returned to the ice and remained in the game. 

"For us, we're happy with the last two games. We've shown what we're about — we know when we play the way we have in the last couple games, we will win a lot of games," Cogliano said. 

As for Bednar, he isn't disappointed with his team's effort in the loss. He said his team has to play at a high level in order to have success and in this case, it did but it wasn't enough. 

"Our guys worked extremely hard. It didn't come easy for us but this is the National Hockey League — you have to expect to have to play exceptional, execution has to be exceptional and your effort has to be exceptional in order to win. That's the way it should be — it's what makes winning so fun," Bednar said.