The Colorado Avalanche’s woes continued Wednesday night in a 5-2 loss to the Senators in Ottawa.
Former Avalanche Matt Duchene had two strikes in the victory.
“I don’t know if you could’ve written it better,” Duchene said. “It’s a very special feeling. … I think I play my best when I’m light and happy. This week’s been the best week of my life.”
Ryan Dzingel had a goal in Sens win over Avs – file photo courtesy of Lewis Bleiman
Duchene was referring to the birth of his new son.
Anders Nilsson made 30 saves in the win.
“We had some huge efforts from everybody tonight,” Duchene said. “[Nilsson] was outstanding, [Jean-Gabriel Pageau’s] line did a really good job against their top line. I thought, top to bottom, we were outstanding.”
Brady Tkachuk, Mark Stone and Ryan Dzingel also scored for the Sens.
The Avs lost for the 10th time in their last 12 games and dropped to 21-18-8.
“We can’t be coaching effort; it’s almost February,” Colorado coach Jared Bednar said. “The effort’s not there at the start of the game for whatever reason. There’s nothing else to it, you can’t look past that. That’s a prerequisite to everything else.”
Nathan MacKinnon and Nikita Zadorov scored for Colorado.
“For about five of the 20 minutes in the first period, I felt we were good,” Avalanche captain Gabriel Landeskog said. “The rest, I felt we were on our heels. … It’s gotten so repetitive. It’s frustrating that we have to wait for the other team to score two goals before we start playing.”
The Avs are not putting together anything near a 60-minute effort as the losses pile up.
“Tonight, the breakdowns were effort-based,” Bednar said. “Poor execution, that’s what it’s based on tonight. Honestly, we addressed it after the first period, it could’ve been [3-0] or 4-0 after the first period. … We started to play when it was 3-0 for them and it was too late.”
[WATCH: All Avalanche vs. Senators highlights]
Semyon Varlamov made 26 saves in the loss.
“If we’re competing the way we need to compete, then sometimes you get the result, sometimes you don’t,” Bednar said. “I feel like we’ve been getting a bit of bad luck here lately. You’re hoping that a game like [a 6-3 win at the Toronto Maple Leafs on Monday] turns it around, but like I said, the effort part has got to be there first.”
You must be logged in to post a comment.