The Colorado Avalanche played hard but suffered a disappointing 4-3 loss to the Toronto Maple Leafs. Despite a two-point night for Mikko Rantanen and a three-point night for Nathan MacKinnon — who extended his home point scoring streak to 28, the Avalanche lost by one to the Toronto Maple Leafs. The Leafs were a determined team coming in on a six-game win streak and they capitalized on the Avs' mistakes. Colorado took only two penalties, but Toronto scored on both those power plays. "That was frustrating because I thought we played hard and did a lot of good things but certainly didn't score easy. I felt like we did it to ourselves at the end of the game," head coach Jared Bednar said referring to Rantanen's delay of game penalty with less than four minutes left tied three all. The Leafs are No. 2 in the NHL on the power play with a 29.3 power-play percentage, only fractions behind the Tampa Bay Lightning. "You can't can give them too many opportunities and ends up being the difference in the hockey game really, because I thought we played really well. First period — get out to a good lead. Second period same thing. Give up a couple goals late in the period, bounce back in the third playing hard. Guys did a lot of good things, good competitive effort from our guys but when you're not scoring easy, you just can't make a couple of those mistakes," Bednar said. Rantanen notched goal number 30 for the season and became the first player in Avalanche history to score 30-plus goals in four consecutive seasons. But he wasn't celebrating that milestone after the loss. "I think we played hard again. Once again I think we five-on-five defended pretty well and they're a good team. They won six in a row and they're feeling it. So you could tell they have, even it doesn't matter how hard you sometimes defend they're gonna create some chances. "We had 2-0 lead to start and even tie game and then you know. Yeah I think we had it you know we had it in our hands — a couple of mistakes including the penalty," the 27-year-old Finland native said. Bowen Byram assisted on Rantanen's goal, who has improved his game as of late. He said the team is going to take away the positives from the game but it was still a frustrating loss. "It's something we can build off of. Still sucks not winning games, but I feel like this last stretch — we've kind of been playing hard and just kind of not been going our way," the 22-year-old defenseman said. Artturi Lehkonen opened up scoring for the Avalanche with a redirect on a MacKinnon shot just over two minutes into the game. Cale Makar earned a point on that goal for his first in eight games. Andrew Cogliano scored the second goal off a tape-to-tape pass from MacKinnon. Image [https://thehockeynews.com/.image/c_fit,h_600,w_600/MjA0NTg5NjAxNTk4MjE5NTc5/usatsi_22611525_168400956_lowres.jpg] “I thought we played pretty well. We had a good, hard game. They are a good team, one of the best teams in the league," Cogliano said. "It just seemed like there were a couple of goals in the second and it’s a tough one to give up at the end. We did a decent job on the [penalty] kill against a really good power play.” Leafs forward Tyler Bertuzzi scored a hat trick (goal number three was the game winner) and Mitch Marner scored the third, game-tying goal. The Avs are now third in the Central Division with 75 points and face the division's No. 1 Dallas Stars on Tuesday. RECENT COLORADO AVALANCHE ARTICLES 'I like the energy that we've played with': Avalanche look to continue success on home ice [https://thehockeynews.com/nhl/colorado-avalanche/game-day/avalanche-look-to-continue-success-on-home-ice] Avalanche fall 2-1 in OT to Red Wings, Cale Makar takes blame for loss [https://thehockeynews.com/nhl/colorado-avalanche/game-day/avalanche-fall-2-1-in-ot-to-red-wings-cale-makar-takes-blame-for-loss] Nathan MacKinnon extends home point-scoring streak to 27 games [https://thehockeynews.com/nhl/colorado-avalanche/latest-news/nathan-mackinnon-extends-home-point-scoring-streak-to-27-games]
