NEWARK, N.J. — The Colorado Avalanche was one of the hottest teams in the NHL before an extended break in conjunction with the All-Star game. The Avs don’t look quite the same on the other side of it.
John Marino scored with 2:17 left in regulation to help the New Jersey Devils turn back a spirited comeback attempt Tuesday night by the Avalanche in a 5-3 win at Prudential Center. It was the first back-to-back losses for Colorado since Dec. 7 and 9 — a span of nearly two months.
Just like the night before across the Hudson River in Manhattan, there were portions of the game that went well for the Avs, along with some bright individual performances. But the overall effort was not good enough.
“We’ve got to fix all of it, regardless of what it is,” Avs coach Jared Bednar said. “There’s no excuses. Every team’s coming off the break, doing their thing. It’s hard to get back in the groove sometimes. It can be a little rough with the execution, but it shouldn’t hurt the effort and competitiveness that you’re going to play with. These are important points.
“Some of it will come (back). Some of it, we’ve got to go work on.”
Cale Makar and Samuel Girard scored 28 seconds apart midway through the third period to rally the Avs from a two-goal deficit. Artturi Lehkonen crunched Luke Hughes with a big hit behind the Devils’ net, and the puck went right to Makar near the left post. He tucked it in the net before Devils goalie Vitek Vanecek was able to identify where it was.
Jonathan Drouin set up Girard on the next shift for a blast from the left point. Suddenly, after looking like a sluggish team at times over the previous 40 minutes, the Avs were back even at 3-3 and pushing for a winner. Instead, less than 30 seconds after a great chance for Nathan MacKinnon, the Devils broke the tie with Marino’s tally.
MacKinnon had 11 shot attempts and a couple of great chances, but was held off the scoresheet for only the second time in the past 35 games. The power play was 0 for 3 for the second straight night after humming along at 35 percent over the final 22 games before the break.
“I think guys were trying, but maybe timing and execution was a little off,” Avs forward Mikko Rantanen said. “Hopefully that will come next game.”
Colorado’s top line did open the scoring on its first shift of the game. Drouin poked the puck away from Nico Hischier and right to Rantanen in the left circle for an impromptu one-timer 83 seconds in.
New Jersey answered on the next shift. Chris Tierney deflected rookie Simon Nemec’s shot from the right point, and it skipped off the ice and past Avs goalie Justus Annunen 2:05 into the opening period.
The Avs held a 10-3 advantage in shots on goal at one point and were dominating play at 5-on-5. But, in similar fashion to Monday night against the Rangers, the other team played better as the game wore on.
There were signs of potential problems earlier in this game, a couple of sloppy plays or poor decisions with the puck led to counterattacks from the Devils. An aggressive pinch near the offensive blue line by Makar led to a 2-on-1 for New Jersey and the lead.
Jesper Bratt played a played a perfect give-and-go on the rush with Hischier and then scored 3:49 into the second period. Dawson Mercer added another one less than three minutes later. The puck hit Annunen and rolled awkwardly off his body. He didn’t notice where it went, but Mercer did and punched it across the goal line with one hand on his stick.
“I felt pretty good, but obviously it’s a little different than back in the AHL,” said Annunen, who got his second start of the season for the Avs after the club sent Ivan Prosvetov down Sunday. “You never want to let pucks through you, so I’d have liked to stop one or two of those (goals) and give the team a chance to win.”
It’s far from panic time for the Avs. There was a strong push in the third period. There was also a disallowed Josh Manson goal when it was still 1-1, and Bednar did not agree with the goalie interference call on Logan O’Connor.
“(O’Connor) wasn’t going into the goalie without getting hit,” Bednar said. “That was my take on it. That’s what I thought the rule was, but they obviously saw it different. Big sort of momentum swing there. We gave up two right after that.”
The Avs are still 13-4-2 since Devon Toews’ viral postgame rant after a sluggish night in Chicago, but they’ve got some work to do on the rest of this road trip to regain the high-flying form from before the extended break.
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