Despite a four-goal loss to the Florida Panthers, the Colorado Avalanche found some good things about their game against a tough opponent.

Valeri Nichushkin, Jonathan Drouin and Mikko Rantanen had two points each but the Avalanche were outplayed in the 8-4 loss to the Florida Panthers. Despite the loss, there were some positive notes from the game.

The Cats came out energized and scored three goals on four shots against the Avs starting goaltender Ivan Prosvetov.

"Well that was a weird one, no doubt about it, to come out that quickly and get a lead like that and then have it disappear on you just as fast. There was a tremendous amount of fabulous offense, they beat us three times from high. But they've got good shooters, we've got good shooters ...," Panthers head coach Paul Maurice said after the game. "And then I think it settled in a little bit and turned into a bit of a grinder and a better game."

The tables turned in the second period with the Avs scoring two goals within the first minute of the period to stage a comeback. Nichushkin tied it up three all as the team continued that momentum.

"At the end of the day, we had some breakdowns there and seemed like they had a good jump in the first, much better than us. but for us to come back and be resilient like we were I think speaks a lot ...," Andrew Cogliano said after the loss. "It's unfortunate because I think we did a lot of good things during the game but it just seems like we were chasing it too much."

All wasn't lost in the loss as there were some lessons learned and realizations had in the game.

“We showed some good things there in the second period especially. It’s a really good push to get three goals in four and a half minutes there to tie it up," Devon Toews said. "Unfortunately, we didn’t keep that up the entire game but if you want to take a positive, the positive is we washed that first period pretty well and came out hard.”

Florida came into Saturday's game having won its last six, so it was expected to be a tough matchup against a highly-ranked, hot team.

The Avalanche face two more tough opponents at home before hitting the road. They play the Boston Bruins on Monday night, then the Vegas Golden Knights on Wednesday.

"We have some really good teams coming up here. Playing good teams is only a great test for everybody and we came out of that first understanding that obviously they were outworking us," Cale Makar said. "We kind of need to get back on our horse so ... it's a good learning testament. It's only going to get tougher but for us, it was a good test tonight."

Even though it was a disappointing loss, head coach Jared Bednar wasn't completely deflated by his team's performance.

"I liked the way we stuck with it. I'm not gonna lie. It's a game that had everything. I didn't like our start. Besides that, I liked our game," Bednar said. "You're playing a team that's got a bunch of dangerous guys and you're doing a good job suppressing chances for the better part of the game."

After Prosvetov gave up a bad goal midway through the second period, he was replaced by Alexandar Georgiev who allowed two goals. The last two tallies from the Panthers were into an empty net.

Cale Makar scored 21 seconds into the period — the fastest to start a period by an Avs player this season. Nathan MacKinnon assisted on the goal which extended his home point streak to 21 games.

Valeri Nichushkin scored his 20th goal which earned him his second career 20-plus-goal season.

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