Eurolanche

Avs Fall In Winnipeg

Colorado Avalanche goaltender Calvin Pickard's return to his hometown was unfortunately inauspicious.

His first start in friendly enemy territory began the way he had hoped, but it didn't finish as such, through no fault of his own, as the Avs fell 4-1 to the Winnipeg Jets at MTS Centre on Sunday.

"I was proud of him. I thought especially the second half of the first period when we had our breakdowns there, he was big in goal for us," head coach Jared Bednar said after the game. "The chances we gave up, I don't know how many there were, but we gave up too many good ones, and he came up big on a lot of them."

Pickard turned aside 10 shots in the first, but the second period saw the contest start to turn in favor of the home team.

"It's not our goaltending. We're getting good goaltending," said Jarome Iginla. "It's unfortunate that when we're making mistakes, it's glaring mistakes. Unfortunately, they're breakaways, 2-on-1's, and that's a team effort--that's all of us. We're getting through our own zone, we don't play the whole time in our zone, but at the same time we're still making some big mistakes, and we know we have to fix it to turn us."

Ultimately, it was those odd-man rushes that doomed the Avalanche. The Jets capitalized on consecutive 2-on-1 situations--in the second and third periods--to take a lead that wouldn't be surrendered.

"That's the story of the night," veteran defenseman Francois Beauchemin said. "We turned the puck over in a lot of tough situations as well. I think we just shoot ourselves in the foot when we do that, obviously. They're a really skilled team, especially their top two lines, and when you give them chances like that they'll capitalize on them."

"We have to limit our turnovers and limit the odd-man rushes against," captain Gabriel Landeskog said. "We said it the last three, four games; every chance and every goal they get, it feels like we're giving it to them. We know they're a good team and they're good here at home, but it feels like they're not doing much out of the ordinary to create anything. It's more that we're giving up chances, and we're being too stubborn with the way we play with the puck. We turn pucks over and that will cost you."

It's these kinds of mistakes that hurt the Avs, ones that occur over and over again. The same errors that cost Colorado the games against the Philadelphia Flyers and Florida Panthers returned to haunt the club in Manitoba.

"Just being a little too soft with the puck," Beauchemin said of the issue. "We can talk [better] in a lot of the situations, too. Sometimes we have more time than we think to make plays, but we don't. When you don't hear teams on the ice, you play a little faster and mistakes happen."

"If the Avs could just loosen up and find a way to bury the puck, things might be different, but that just isn't happening."

"We have to find ways to score goals. We didn't create much offensively until we got a 6-on-4 at the end," said Beauchemin. "I think we only had 15 shots after two periods and up until the penalty, I don't think we had five or six in the third. We got to shoot the puck more, get guys to the net and get deflections off of it."

"I think offensively, it feels like we're looking for the perfect play a little too much. I know at times it feels like you're throwing away pucks when you're throwing them at net, but when you have 15 shots after the first two periods, you're not going to lose anything by throwing pucks at the net," said Landeskog. "We got to start having more of a shot mentality. We've talked about it before, but right now we're being a little too stubborn as far as choosing our shots. We got play more toward the net and throw some more pucks at the net."

It appears that the club becomes frustrated after falling to a deficit and that doesn't translate well offensively.

"I think we've done a decent job of resetting [after contests], but I think as we get into games and we're playing a decent game and when we make a mistake, I think the frustration starts to set in with our group right now," Bednar said. "I'll give them credit. Every day we come to the rink and turn the page. We address the last game, turn the page and move onto the next one. That is all you can do. You can't worry about the past, especially when you're going through something like this.

"You have to get ready for the next game. Our group has done a good job of doing that and then we come out and play the next night. But like I said, when things don't go your way early or something ends up in the back of your net, you can see the frustration set in."

Now Colorado is tasked with a game at the surging Minnesota Wild on Tuesday, a match that carries with it the weight of the Avalanche's recent struggles. The only way for things to change is to play out of the slump, and that's what the Avs will look to do in St. Paul against a team they've already beaten twice this season.

"You got to work hard in practice at things that we need to improve and stay with it. This is the only way that we're going to get out of it," Beauchemin said. "You try and stay positive. It's hard, but that's what you got to do."

--by Ryan Boulding for ColoradoAvalanche.com--