Avalanche mistakes costly in loss to Wild with first place on the line

The Avalanche had scored a power play goal in a dozen consecutive games. In the unlucky 13th, they got played by their own power play.

Nathan MacKinnon’s shot was blocked, Cale Makar’s recovery of a bouncing puck was squandered at the blue line, and Frederick Gaudreau converted the ensuing short-handed breakaway for the back-breaking goal in Colorado’s 4-2 loss to the Wild on Wednesday.

“I was going backward for the first little bit, and then just couldn’t get back,” Makar said. “I took the first swipe at (the puck), and it bounced over my stick. Just one of those nights.”

In the most important game of the season at Ball Arena, with a chance to leapfrog Minnesota for first place in the Central, the Avs (44-24-6) conceded what was just their third short-handed goal of the season at the worst possible time.  Halfway through the second period, the Avs trailed 2-1 when Valeri Nichushkin drew a boarding penalty behind the net. Gaudreau’s goal came just 14 seconds into the power play, and the Avs suddenly looked lifeless for the last 1:46.

Instead of overtaking Minnesota atop the division, Colorado trails by three points with eight games remaining, including Saturday (7 p.m. MT) against the tied-for-second-place Dallas Stars.

“It’s a game of mistakes, and we made some big ones,” Avalanche coach Jared Bednar said. “Didn’t make a lot of them, but we made some big ones.”

Colorado outshot Minnesota 44-29 thanks in part to a third-period blitz, but the Wild stood strong. Especially their goalie, Filip Gustavsson. He saved a Sam Girard partial breakaway late in the second and stonewalled Mikko Rantanen on another power play opportunity from the slot in the third.

But Colorado’s other bitter moment was a call reversal with 5:19 remaining. After the officials stopped play to call Minnesota for too many men on the ice, they convened and changed the ruling. No penalty. The Avs’ 12-game streak ended when Minnesota scored its second shorty of the night — an empty-netter with 30 seconds left.

The atmosphere in Ball Arena was electric from puck drop, and the officials made multiple other calls worthy of scrutiny in the first 10 minutes. In other words, the playoffs came early to Colorado.

But Bednar didn’t think his entire team’s effort met the occasion.

“I thought we had some passengers for the first period-plus. And when you’re playing a game like this, like a playoff style game, you can’t have passengers,” Bednar said. “… I don’t want to put the whole group in that, because I thought we had some guys that played their butts off tonight. But when you’re banged up a little bit and you’re going through it and you’re playing 15 games in 26 days and you’ve got a chance to play at home to win the division, I would have liked to see our whole team engaged right away. And I don’t think that our whole team was engaged right away.”

Bednar went on to say that his best players “played hard tonight,” despite the untimely moments like Makar’s bouncing puck. “Wasn’t our top guys that I’m concerned about.”

“I didn’t think we executed great,” Bednar said. “We had a couple guys that fought the puck that worked really hard. And then we had guys that didn’t work hard enough. I’m more critical on the guys that didn’t work hard enough.”

Bednar also specified that he liked the effort from defenseman Bo Byram, who scored on a first-period breakaway as returned from the penalty box. It was Byram’s third consecutive game with a goal, and it capped a frenetic first 10 minutes with four penalty calls.

“Doesn’t get comfortable or complacent,” Bednar said of the 21-year-old.

It was an otherwise messy first period for Colorado. A rare Alexandar Georgiev turnover transformed into Minnesota’s first goal, with help from Joel Eriksson Ek’s magnificent between-the-legs assist. Then Girard got bodied in front of the net to lose a puck battle that resulted in Sam Steel scoring the Wild’s second.

As for the “passengers,” Bednar didn’t name names, and he added that the engagement improved throughout the game. He also indicated the players being called out don’t know who they are yet.

“They’re going to find out, though,” the coach said. He plans address it one-on-one.

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