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Colorado braced for a heavy-hitting Game 5 back at the American Airlines Center on Monday night, and that’s what Dallas brought. The ice seemed less than pristine, which may have caused some unlucky bounces against the Avs. Also, highly questionable penalties were called. But excuses aside, the team lacked in a few areas.

Good & Bad: On The Brink of Elimination — Avalanche No-Show in Game 5 Loss

“I didn’t think we had the best execution to start the game, and even throughout the game, to be honest. There were some plays where almost uncharacteristic mistakes here and there, but stuff’s going to happen,” Gabriel Landeskog said. “It was more some of the sort out, some of the routes we took and gave up some odd man rushes more than usual, just a bit uncharacteristic. So we’re going to clean that up here come Thursday.”

What else went wrong, besides the Stars getting production from their top players, finally?

10 Observations

1. The power play has been ineffective, and that needs to be fixed. The Avs went 0-3 with only six shots on goal — one from Cale Makar, four from Nathan MacKinnon and one from Martin Necas. They need to be better on the man-advantage.

2. MacKinnon’s goal came on the shift with Landeskog and Necas. Time for the captain to retake his throne on the top line?

3. Jake Oettinger owned Makar. The elite defenseman had four shots on goal that Oettinger nabbed as if he knew exactly where they were going. Makar only has two points over five games and is a minus-3. Talk about uncharacteristic. The team is in dire need of his offensive contribution.

4. MacKinnon is not the only player who can score goals. Yet he consistently has the highest number of SOG. He had seven, while the next closest was Makar with four. Can’t win games if you don’t shoot the puck — and it can’t be just one or two players.

5. Battling for the puck was chaotic at times throughout the game. There was no ease of flow with puck handling or management.

“We weren’t great on the defensive side of things, some decision-making,” head coach Jared Bednar said.

6. Officiating was not good. There, I said it. As my colleague Aarif Deen said in his Good & Bad, there were some highly questionable penalties called on the Avalanche that could have been embellishment calls on those “infracted.”

7. A few players need to break out of their slumps. This is playoff time, and as coach Jared Bednar said, “You can’t have guys having bad nights this time of the year.”

8. Mackenzie Blackwood did not play his best game. He knows, and it didn’t help his confidence with bad luck goals. Hopefully, he’ll bounce back quickly and return to the goaltender who shut out the Stars in Game 4.

9. The Stars played as hungry and determined as the Avs did in Game 4. Now they’re up a game in the series. If the Avs can get back to that Game 4 form and not stray from it in the next two games, they will advance. There is no room for error in the postseason. They need to play their best hockey and Monday night’s loss was not close to it.

10. The most positive note of the game was Scott Wedgewood’s performance when put in for the third period. He has not played since April 13 and stopped eight shots in his first postseason action since May 23, 2023.

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The Avalanche lost 5-4 in St. Louis on Saturday.

10 Observations

1. Sam Malinski’s irrelevant goal ended a pretty cool streak. Before this loss, the Avalanche had won 30 straight games when scoring four or more goals. They were 30-2-0 when doing so.

This is even funnier when you realize those two regulation losses with four goals were the first two games of the season. I still can’t believe how bad the goaltending was back then.

2. Twelve straight wins for the St. Louis Blues is quite the run. The Vegas Golden Knights (or potentially Winnipeg) are going to have their hands full in the first round. Especially if Jordan Binnington continues to play this well.

3. Do the Blues have a chance of catching the Avs? Yes, but it’s very, very unlikely. With four games remaining for both teams, St. Louis has to make up six points on the Avalanche to catch them in the standings. For example, Colorado would need to go 1-3-0 and the Blues 4-0-0.

4. Would anyone be upset if that happened? Other than ending the regular season on a bad note, would this be the worst thing in the world? It’s not going to happen, but could you imagine if the Avs managed to avoid that slugfest in the Central Division entirely, at least for a couple of rounds?

5. I chatted with Jared Bednar about this before the road trip, but the one year over the past three that the Avs finished the regular season strong was the year they didn’t get out of the first round. It’s a weird trend, but it’s a reminder that it’s not worth panicking over a 2-2-1 stretch with a playoff spot already locked up.

6. Should we be alarmed by the lack of production lately from Valeri Nichushkin and Artturi Lehkonen?

7. One man’s injury is another man’s opportunity. Kudos to Miles Wood for taking advantage of these last two games, scoring twice and adding an assist. He’s also awoken the offensive side of Charlie Coyle’s game.

Not to get ahead of myself, but if Wood continues to play this way and becomes a valuable piece for the playoffs, it’ll make everyone — including him — forget about what’s been a tough season to date.

8. It’s not a perfect comparison, but if he pulls that off, it would remind me of Darren Helm in 2022. It’s not that Helm had a bad regular season, but his role wasn’t quite etched in stone until the playoffs.

Then, Bednar shifted him to center, and he developed instant chemistry with Logan O’Connor and Andrew Cogliano and led the league in hits. The rest is history.

As for Wood, his ice time is up in these past two games, and you could see him looking more like the 2023-24 player that made a good impression with a new team.

9. Good news regarding the Jonathan Drouin and Martin Necas injuries. Both are considered day-to-day. Necas remained with the team through the end of the road trip but was too sore to play. Drouin flew back to Denver after suffering lower-body injury.

The Avs are off on Sunday, so the next update will be on Monday at practice at Family Sports. Gabriel Landeskog’s going to be there, too.

10. Speaking of injuries, what’s the deal with Samuel Girard? He’s the only one we didn’t get an update on during this road trip. Unless I missed something.

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“In order to win games, we got to have depth, and that depth is contributing right now. So we got to continue for the third period here and make sure we play a solid game,” Cale Makar said during the second intermission.

Sam Girard did not play against the Hawks. Jonathan Drouin was injured in the game and did not play after the first period. Martin Necas sustained an upper-body injury but finished the game. All three players were out against the Blue Jackets. But Colorado still earned two points with them out of the lineup and secured a playoff spot with the win.

READ FULL GAME RECAP: Good & Bad: Avs Clinch Playoff Spot with Quick Turnaround Win

10 Observations

1 – It was a very different-looking team than the night before against the Blackhawks. They were flat and did not shift gears until the end of the matchup with Chicago, as opposed to firing on all cylinders throughout the dominating win over Columbus.

2 – The Avs showed a little discombobulation out of the gate with the line changes, but they dialed it in pretty quickly. I was off on my projected lines but what head coach Jared Bednar put together worked well. He knows how to adjust his lineup with injured players out — he’s had to do it most of the season.

3 – It was a physically challenging game and some guys got banged up. Logan O’Connor and Parker Kelly were checked out by the training staff after physical plays. Neither left the game. But a day off will help heal bruises and sore bodies.

4 – There was production from all four lines. Charlie Coyle scored his first as an Av and Brock Nelson scored his fourth with the team. Kelly netted goal No. 8 for the season and Nathan MacKinnon scored No. 31.

5 – MacKinnon’s goal was a determination goal as he stuck with the puck through three Blue Jackets players to whip it past Elvis Merzlikins. Not his prettiest, but one of his sneakiest.

6 – The full team effort came on the full-strength play. The Avs capitalized on one of their two power plays but shined in the 5-on-5.

7 – Ryan Lindgren was a minus-1 and didn’t get on the scoresheet but led the team in shots on goal. His effort did not go unnoticed.

8 – Colorado played like the game mattered. It did not look as fully engaged in its last two outings. It needed that momentum going up against the red hot St. Louis Blues on Saturday.

9 – Mackenzie Blackwood made big saves in his first start since the 2-1 loss to the Blues at Ball Arena last Saturday. Some rest likely helped him regroup mentally and physically.

10 – The Avs are fifth in the league for missed shots with 1,170 but they finally got the hockey gods on their side with Devon Toews’ goal hitting the post and actually going in the net instead of away from it.

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The Avs pretty much did to Chicago what the Calgary Flames did to them two nights prior. They erased a two-goal deficit in the third period and stole a second point in the process.

Given how the last handful of games have gone, it was nice to see the superstars take control of the game late and refuse a loss like this.

10 Observations

1. It’s way too early to know if Jonathan Drouin is going to miss any time. And if he does, if it’ll stretch into the playoffs. Either way, losing him so close to the end of the regular season for the second straight year would be brutally bad luck. Let’s hope that’s not the case.

2. Speaking of injuries, Martin Necas’ injury scare still worries me. That’s the type of injury that could linger into the next day. We’ll find out later this evening once the Avs take the ice against the Columbus Blue Jackets.

3. Schedule makers, what are you doing? If the Avalanche actually had something to play for, this would be a much bigger deal than it already is. But they dropped the puck at 9:52 p.m. ET in Chicago on Wednesday and will drop the puck at 7:08 p.m. against Columbus. That’s an insane turnaround with travel.

4. One more goal for Cale Makar to do the thing. He’d be the first defenseman since 2008-09 to reach 30 goals.

5. Would’ve loved to see Nathan MacKinnon beat up on a lesser opponent to give himself a better chance at winning the Art Ross Trophy. As things currently stand, he and Nikita Kucherov are tied with 111 points each. Although it’s worth noting that Kucherov and the Lightning have two games in hand.

It’s not looking good for MacKinnon. He had one assist against Chicago.

6. Am I missing something with Mackenzie Blackwood? Without any local media traveling to Chicago, there wasn’t an update provided on why Colorado’s starter did not dress. Kevin Mandolese served as the backup to Scott Wedgewood.

7. Pretty cool stat courtesy of Avalanche PR: The game-tying goal from Necas was the 10th 6-on-5 tally for the Avs this season. That not only leads the NHL, but it also breaks a franchise record for the most in one season.

8. Colorado is three wins away from reaching 50 in each of the last four seasons. The only other team that can get there (and probably will) is the Carolina Hurricanes. This felt like a pipe dream not too long ago.

9. Samuel Girard did not play in this game either. We’ll find out soon what the deal is there. Basically, status updates are needed for Drouin, Blackwood, and Girard while also keeping an eye on Necas after that scary play in Chicago.

That’s a lot.

10. Artturi Lehkonen made that shootout goal look easy. He was smiling ear to ear after clinching the win, too. Even though it doesn’t count as a goal, I wonder if that tally helps break him out of this scoring slump.

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