Mistakes and poor goaltending cost the Colorado Avalanche their home opener and raised concerns after two straight losses. The team has shown good and bad — with the bad outweighing the good — in the first two games.
“It’s frustrating because you view, you go to work in camp, and you want to have a good start to the season. You don’t want to be digging holes and then trying to climb out, but it’s a long year,” head coach Jared Bednar said after the 6-4 loss to the Columbus Blue Jackets.
Alexandar Georgiev allowed three goals on nine shots and was replaced by Justus Annunen who allowed two goals on 13 shots. Despite the subpar performances from both netminders, Bednar is confident in his starting goaltender.
Why the #GoAvsGo are frustrated but not worried after a 0-2 start: https://t.co/eBeDyhuuow @ColHockeyNow @Avalanche pic.twitter.com/P59ITQaiqw
— Colleen Flynn (@CHNFlynn) October 13, 2024
“I get that there’s a level of frustration, but Georgie (Georgiev) is, he’s our guy, he’s our starter,” Bednar said. “And I have full faith that he has the ability, the talent, the work ethic, to bounce back and win us hockey games. It’s a mental game right now, so we’ll regroup, and then we have other areas of our game too that we have to get better at.”
Repeating Mistakes
Some of the mishaps that led to the loss were similar to the ones in the season-opening loss to the Vegas Golden Knights. Bednar said they started in the offensive zone in both games and those are the details of their game that need to be cleaned up.
“Some, yeah, some, no. I think we were better defending than we were in the Vegas game. So that’s a plus. That’s something that we’re really keen in on right now, is focusing on our D side of our game. So, you know, some parts of it better, some not. So it’s, like I said, it’s still a work in progress for us,” Devon Toews said.
Home Sweet Home
The Avalanche play their next three at Ball Arena, which Bednar said they will “try to get this thing back on track quickly” and “hopefully, it’s just a blip on the radar.”