Good & Bad: Avalanche Fall to Vancouver in Regular Season Home Finale

DENVER — The regular season games at home have come to an end.

Following Thursday’s 4-1 loss to the Vancouver Canucks at Ball Arena, the Avalanche ended the year 26-12-3 at home, which is five wins fewer than last year and four more than where they finished in 2023.

Devon Toews had Colorado’s lone tally, and Mackenzie Blackwood made 26 saves in goal. The Avs outshot Vancouver 32-30 but could only get one puck past goalie Kevin Lankinen.

“Not skating. Bad decisions,” a visibly frustrated Jared Bednar said about his team’s performance. “Our breakouts were terrible, so just tough time getting in and out of the zone tonight. Kind of messes up your whole game.”

Just like earlier in the week, the Avs fell into a 2-0 hole before getting going offensively. The first period ended scoreless, but things changed in the second.

First, Jake DeBrusk beat Blackwood at 4:50 to make it 1-0 off a setup from Kiefer Sherwood. And just over three minutes later, Sherwood wired one past Blackwood to put the Canucks up by two.

The Avs needed nearly 10 minutes to pull within one and end Lankinen’s shutout bid. Charlie Coyle put the puck on goal from the blueline, and Toews redirected it past the goalie. It’s his 10th goal of the season, reaching double digits in goals for the second year in a row and the third time in the last four years.

Coyle’s assist was his eighth since joining the Avs while extending his point streak to four games. If that’s the guy centering Ross Colton and (maybe) Gabriel Landeskog in the playoffs, then this team is going to look even more dangerous than it already would with a healthy lineup.

Vancouver added to its lead in the third with a tally from Dakota Joshua and added an empty-netter with 1:58 remaining.

The only other highlight was a fight between a very frustrated Logan O’Connor and a bigger defenseman, Elias Pettersson. Both landed quite a few jabs and were sent to the box for fighting.

Bednar said he liked seeing O’Connor stick up for himself after a missed interference call from the officials.

“I was frustrated with how we played up to that point, and then it sort of boiled over at that moment,” O’Connor said of the fight.

The Avs will practice on Friday before traveling to California for a two-game road trip over the weekend to close out the regular season. Bednar is still undecided on which of his guys will go on that trip. Colorado is almost officially locked into that No. 3 seed.

Good: Nobody Got (Noticeably) Hurt

At this point in the season, this is all you’re hoping to accomplish in these games that are almost entirely meaningless in the standings. The Avs are technically still playing for seeding later in the playoffs, but their first round against the Dallas Stars is pretty much locked in.

Nobody got noticeably hurt in this game, and that’s good news. The keyword here is noticeably.

I almost wrote about this last game before Colorado mounted the comeback and won in a shootout. But, as it turns out, Ryan Lindgren got hurt in that game. Let’s hope the team comes out of this one entirely unscathed.

We all remember Jonathan Drouin’s unfortunate injury in Game 82 last year.

Cale Makar blocked a shot with his leg that looked to sting him a bit. And that O’Connor fight had far too many hits to the head for my liking. But both seemed fine and finished the game. Makar is one of the guys who would welcome a break this weekend, but he’ll do what’s asked of him and play those games if needed.

Makar is the only player to appear in all 80 games so far this season.

Bad: Can’t Stop Kiefer Sherwood

Sometimes a player just has your number. For the Avalanche, it’s usually someone who played for them in the past. At least that’s what it often feels like.

One of the bright spots of the Canucks season has been the play of Sherwood. He’s taken off offensively this year while smashing the record for hits in a season. He broke the record with his 384th hit on March 22 and is well over 400 at this point.

Sherwood had a goal and an assist in this game and recorded his first and only career hat trick in a previous meeting against the Avs. That means he’s scored four of the 10 goals the Canucks have on the Avalanche this season. And nearly 13% of his points this season are in three games against the Avs.

Impressive.