- Colorado was 45-0-0 when leading after two periods this season — until Friday
- Ivan Barbashev’s go-ahead goal flipped a 1-0 Avs lead into a 3-1 Game 2 loss
- Read below for Gabriel Landeskog and Jared Bednar reacting to the stunning collapse
The Avalanche just lost a game they’d won 45 times in a row.
Colorado entered the third period of Friday’s Game 2 up 1-0 on Vegas and looking like they would even the Western Conference Final. The Avs were 45-0-0 when leading after two periods this season between the regular season and playoffs combined.
Then Jack Eichel and Ivan Barbashev scored two minutes and seven seconds apart, and the streak was gone. Vegas walked out of Ball Arena with a 3-1 win and a 2-0 series lead.
Avs captain Gabriel Landeskog talked about how the team plans to respond.
“It stings for sure right now, but tomorrow we’ll wake up, have a meeting, fly to Vegas and regroup,” Landeskog said. “That’s all you can do.”
Here’s the NHL highlight package of the third-period flip:
Ross Colton put Colorado up 1-0 late in the first. Scott Wedgewood was chasing his first career playoff shutout when Eichel scored his first goal since Game 3 of the first round, toe-dragging a wrister off the far post. Barbashev followed with a screened point shot at 11:22 to flip the game and added an empty-netter with just over a minute left.
Avs coach Jared Bednar talked about the line between winning and losing on a night Colorado felt it outplayed Vegas in most areas.
“It’s a fine margin for error, the difference of winning and losing,” Bednar said. “There’s a lot of that game that I really liked, and so you’ve got to keep chipping away at the margins.”
Cale Makar missed his second straight game with an upper-body injury, and the absence keeps showing up. The power play has gone cold and the defensive rotations look out of sync without him. When asked about urgency to get his star defenseman back, Bednar bristled.
“There’s urgency to get him back like since he got hurt,” Bednar said. “But it’s going to be Cale’s decision on when he’s coming back. He’s doing all the work he can possibly do.”
Watch the full Avalanche post-game media availability with Wedgewood, Landeskog, and Bednar:
Logan O’Connor took the loss personally.
“It’s on us now,” O’Connor said.
Check out the Barbashev game-winner that ended the streak:
Teams that fall behind 2-0 in a best-of-seven are 58-365 all-time. Colorado heads to Vegas down two and still without their best defenseman, with Game 3 set for Sunday at T-Mobile Arena.
