Avalanche Game 10 Recap: Lemons

Every fan of a certain team has a list of certain games they look forward to the most. For Colorado Avalanche fans, one of them was played already--the first meeting against the Seattle Kraken. The second one, has to be...has to be the first meeting against the Vegas Golden Knights. We are talking about the last two teams to hoist the Stanley Cup; the Avs did it in 2022, and the Golden Knights did it last year. For me, I was definitely looking forward to this, because this was the Avs chance to basically tell the Knights, "Hey, you know that Cup you guys won? Yeah, we're gonna want that back."

And then the game began.

It was nice to see Alexandar Georgiev back in net, because he deserved a chance to rebound from his disastrous starts. He would end up put to work quite early; the Avs were on the penalty kill twice already, but they were killed off thanks to Georgiev's goaltending. The shots were 9-3 for Vegas at some point, but it was only a matter of time for the Avs, I figured. Avs were called for a penalty again, but it turned out to be matching minors, and then 4-on-4 became a 4-on-3 power play for Colorado. The matching minors ended, but Vegas regained the puck, controlled the Avs' zone, and after a mishap and apparent injury to Cale Makar, it's a shorthanded goal for Mark Stone. That pissed me off. Avs kill two Vegas PPs like it was nothing, yet we give up a shortie on a PP we needed. It was 1-0 after 20 minutes; little did the Avs know about the floodgates that would open.

2nd period: Cale Makar's OK, Avs get a power play that results in nothing. The shots even up before Colorado takes over the shots lead, but at the period's midpoint, Stanley Cup Champion Jack Eichel makes it 2-0. It gets worse. William Carrier scores to make it 3-0, and right after that goal, the Avs commit a penalty. That leads to Eichel striking again 52 seconds after Carrier's goal. It's 4-0. That's the score after 40. It somehow gets even worse. Avs get a power play early in the third, but Mark Stone decides to net his second shortie of the game. It's followed by two more goals from William Karlsson, Avs can't get anything past Adin Hill, and the result is a 7-0 loss for the Avs.

Remember last year, when it seemed like we were better on the road than at home? What happened?! The Avs swept that three game road swing to start the season, but all of a sudden, we have forgotten how to score goals on the road. All three of our losses are road shutouts: Pittsburgh, Buffalo, now Vegas. I don't understand it. I mean, yeah, those are three solid teams, but one would figure that the Avs would score at least once on any of them. Not the case. Thankfully, it's still early. This is only Game 10, there are 72 games left.

The player I felt for the most in this terribe loss is definitely Alexandar Georgiev. It looked like he would rebound after those losses; after all, he killed two Vegas power plays and was on track to steal this game. Then the first shortie happened, and all hell broke loose. Georgiev will get it together. He's still the same goalie who tied for the lead in wins in his first full season as a starter. He'll get it together.

The Avs will finally have a homestand this season, and it will start on Tuesday, as the team will host the New Jersey Devils. It's the first of a three game home stand, as well as the first of four of five games at Ball Arena.

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