Offense goes cold, quirky Bruins goals costly in Avalanche’s first regulation loss of season

BOSTON — It’s a long season in the NHL, but circumstances can change pretty quickly. The Colorado Avalanche came to TD Garden as the last remaining team in the league without a loss in regulation. The Avs left in their first mini-funk of the season. This Saturday afternoon started well, but ended with a 3-2 loss to the Boston Bruins. Colorado (5-1-3) has now lost three games in a row (0-1-2) and heads down I-95 for a Sunday matinee with the top team in the Eastern Conference — the New Jersey Devils. “It was frustrating because we had a good start but couldn’t extend the lead,” Avs coach Jared Bednar said. “The goal at the end of the second period is a killer. … You make a couple just really quick mistakes trying to do the right thing, and it ends up in the back of your net. “Ends up being a close game, but we’ve got to try and capitalize on our chances a little bit better than we did and can’t have any of those sort of mental lapses.” Artturi Lehkonen had both of Colorado’s goals, but the second came with 19.2 seconds left on a re-direction of Nathan MacKinnon’s shot. Scott Wedgewood made his ninth straight start to open the season. He allowed two goals on four shots in the first period after being pulled for the first time two days prior against the Carolina Hurricanes, and finished with 16 saves. The first and third Boston goals were quirky, but he wanted at least one of them back. “Two of those goals, you just want to break your stick over a post and yell at yourself,” Wedgewood said. “Either one of those stay out of the net and we’re tying it up late and going to overtime. The boys have bailed me out a couple times this year, and unfortunately, I cost them that one.” While the power play scored once to salvage a point against the Hurricanes, it continues to not produce at the level expected. Since scoring a power-play goal in each of the first three games this season, the Avs are now 1 for 22 in the past six contests. “If you had asked me that question a couple days ago, I’d say a lot (is wrong),” MacKinnon said. “But I thought tonight it was actually pretty good. Val had some great looks. The other unit had some really good looks. … We had like 10 seconds on the third one, it’s going to say 0-for-3, but it was really 0-for-2 with some good looks.” It wasn’t just struggles on the power play in this one. Colorado generated plenty of shots on goal and controlled the time of possession for the vast majority of this contest. All that time in the offensive zone didn’t generate as many Grade-A chances as Colorado typically would at even strength, and Bruins goalie Jeremy Swayman didn’t have many tough saves to make. The Avalanche dominated the run of play for nearly 14 minutes in the first period and took the lead. By the time 15 minutes were complete, the Avs were trailing. Mason Lohrei’s shot from the left point was off target, and then Viktor Arvidsson tried to jam it past Wedgewood at the left post. That didn’t work, so Arvidsson collected the puck behind the net and threw it off the goalie’s back for a bank shot goal at 14:16. “He just gets the puck back and unfortunately, I can’t go anywhere,” Wedgewood said. “It’s like, you know what is happening, but you can’t really do anything to defend it.” That tied the score. Littleton native Mikey Eyssimont put Boston in front 37 seconds later. Avs defenseman Sam Malinski tried to rush forward and keep the puck in the offensive zone, but he missed it, and that gave the Bruins a 2-on-1 the other way. Eyssimont buried a one-timer from Tanner Jeannot at 14:53. Bednar said everyone on the ice did the right thing on that play, but the puck just bounced over Malinski’s stick. Colorado had 10 of the first 11 shots on goal before Arvidsson scored. The Avs also took the lead at 4:26 of the first. MacKinnon took the puck off the wall behind the Boston net and snapped a backhanded pass to Lehkonen for a one-timer and a pretty goal. Wedgewood had a strong second period. He made several big saves, particularly during the one part of the 40 minutes where it felt like Boston actually controlled the play. But then, after several minutes of Colorado-centric offensive action, Boston scored again on a counter-attack. This one came with only 4.5 seconds left in the second. Morgan Geekie beat Josh Manson in a race to the puck after Boston’s David Pastrnak deflected it into the Avs zone from near center ice. Geekie picked the puck up near the left post and acted like he was going behind the net. That fooled Manson and Wedgewood. Manson went to the right and lost an edge. Wedgwood started to slide to his left, just as Geekie decided to cut back and stuff the puck inside the near post for a goal. The Avs got one back in the final minute, but it was too little, too late. “We could have won every single one of these games,” Wedgewood said. “I know it’s a results-driven business, but you look at some of these games and maybe you want to take one period out, but otherwise there’s 40 minutes of perfect hockey. “I think when you break it all down and look at it, we could be undefeated. We could have even more points than we do with the overtime losses we’ve had. But, obviously, with the way this room is built and the mindset here, we believe we can achieve more.” Want more Avalanche news? Sign up for the Avalanche Insider to get all our NHL analysis.