Dater: Choke To Coyotes Has Ominous Implications

Stanley Cup teams don't blow 4-0 leads, but it's more than that

Matt Cohen/Icon Sportswire

Normally, I don’t react too much either way to a regular-season game. There are 82 of them in the long, long, long NHL season, and then the real games begin. Last night’s 5-4 OT loss for the Avalanche against the Arizona Coyotes, though? Yeah, I’ll react with the following observation:

It wasn’t good, and it’s a loss that makes me now wonder about this team. Before explaining why, let’s state this fact up front: the Avs are first in the Central Division, a team still without its captain, a top-six forward and (until tomorrow anyway) a regular defenseman.

But, and this was made clear in our live chat for last night’s game: Not many Avs fans are happy with the way things are going with the team. I mean, we all know it’s a very good team that can win another Stanley Cup. But there have just been too many bewildering flops like last night.

I mean, the Avs were cruising late in the second period, up 4-0. But, a late second-period goal and brutally bad third period later, the game was 4-4 and headed to OT. Then, the lost extra point, followed by this reaction from goalie Alexandar Georgiev.

The Avs just seemed totally helpless after the Coyotes got going. Jared Bednar didn’t call any timeouts, though, just rolling out the same lines as if nothing too bad was going on. After the game, he sounded curiously blase about the loss, saying at one point that Georgiev was “great” in the game. Uh, no.

Georgiev is 39th in the NHL in save percentage right now, at .897. He’s got a goals-against average of 3.00.

Granted, the defense in front of him made too many bonehead decisions to count later in the game last night. Too many gaps in the D coverage, too many bad icings, too many lazy passes in the neutral zone that led to turnovers and odd-man rushes the other way.