In Denver, the Avalanche’s troubles of stringing together a winning streak continued on Thursday night when they were doubled up by the Buffalo Sabres, 4-2.
The loss ended a brief two-game winning streak for the Avs.
Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen made 39 saves in the Sabres.
“It wouldn’t have been nice to chase that game,” Buffalo coach Don Granato said. “[The Avalanche] play an up-and-down style. Those teams that hunker down, you definitely don’t want to chase those games. So, impressive start, and I thought our guys were dialed in all the way through.”
Buffalo took a 3-0 lead into the third period before the Avs rallied to shave the advantage to 3-2.
Buffalo improved to 14-14-2.
Tage Thompson and Alex Tuch scored in the first period to stake the Sabres to a 2-0 lead.
“The first goal is always big in this league, it just is, and what a play,” Granato said. “I thought a lot of calm, a lot of confidence, a lot of poise to set that goal up and really set a tone by Middlestadt, Thompson, and Tuch.”
Rasmus Dahlin pushed the lead to 3-0 in the middle frame.
“I just put my head down and shot as hard as I could, so I was happy it went in,” Dahlin said. “We got a really nice 3-0 lead, and we did a really good job closing the game. We kept the tempo, kept it hard.”
Colorado dropped to 15-11-2.
“We’re sleeping. Sleeping early. They got two in the first seven minutes,” Colorado coach Jared Bednar said. “We didn’t manage the puck properly, didn’t defend hard enough, not enough intensity to our game. You see after the, I don’t know, call it first 12 minutes of the game, we start to get going. Everything starts turning in our direction. Just couldn’t score.”
The Avs woke up in the third when Mikko Rantanen scored at 8:20 to make it 3-1.
“Tonight, I didn’t like part of our lineup, so those guys end up playing more, and especially when you’re chasing a game, right?” Bednar said. “You dig a hole early, your offensive guys are going to get more ice time.”
Evan Rodrigues made it closer at 18:28 with his strike for a 3-2 score.
Dylan Cozens closed the door on the Avs when he hit for an empty-net goal with 58 seconds left..
“When there’s an empty net, our guys are too excited to feel any bit of panic,” Granato said. “It’s kind of a nice feeling where they’re so hungry in anticipation of how to kill a play and jump on a play because they’re staring at an empty net. That’s kind of the advantage of having offensive guys that are responsible. They know they’re going to get rewarded if they do the work, and it was again a nice play all around.”
Alexandar Georgiev made 17 saves. in the Avs loss.
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