The Avalanche were by far the worst team in the NHL last season and while they have a decent amount of youngish talent, they aren't believed to make a notable leap from that in 2017-18. Patrice Bergeron (lower-body) is still day-to-day while David Backes (illness) and Noel Acciari (broken finger) are on IR meaning that Torey Krug and Austin Czarnik made their season debuts for the B's while Matt Grzelcyk was sent down to Providence. Colorado was also wrapping up a three-game road trip to begin the year but even though the Bruins hadn't played since Thursday, the Avs were somehow the fresher team.
Just like the Red Sox in Games 1 and 2 of the 2017 ALDS vs. Astros, the Bruins didn't give themselves much of a chance as they trailed 2-0 less than 14 minutes into the contest. First Tuukka Rask (19 saves) allowed a very weak goal as Sven Andrighetto's shot trickled off his glove hand and into the net at 4:41. Mikko Rantanen and Nikita Zadorov had the assists on Andrighetto's first goal of the season. After going 1-for-5 in the season-opening win vs. Nashville, Boston's power play was 0-for-4 this afternoon which was made worse by the fact that they allowed a 2-on-1 shorthanded goal to J.T. Compher at 13:22. Old friend Carl Soderberg had the assist on Compher's first goal of the campaign.
Boston outshot Colorado 29-23 including 11-5 in the first period and 11-8 in the second period but that hardly mattered. The B's also owned the face-off dot (37-15) but what does that matter when you have six more giveaways (13-7), seven less takeaways (15-8) and missed the net with 16 shots (!). If you skipped the second period, literally nothing happened besides David Pastrnak almost scored a goal except Semyon Varlamov (29 saves; 22nd career NHL shutout & 2nd vs. Boston) stopped the puck just enough with his left leg pad that it went along the goal line but never over.
Rask's rough day continued in the third period as he came way out to try to get to a loose puck before Nail Yakupov did but the former Oilers No. 1 overall pick 2012 is at least faster than him so he potted what'll be the easiest non-empty net goal of his career. Your guy Patrik Nemeth and Harvard's Alex Kerfoot had the helpers on Yakupov's laugher of a tally. Speaking of which, Yakupov rounded out the scoring by getting credit for an empty-netter with 43.6 seconds left as Pastrnak knocked the net off its mooring before the puck inevitably would have been swept in by Yakupov or Andrighetto.
These same clubs meet on Wednesday in Colorado (9:30, NESN), thanks NHL? I feel like that could be a good time for the Bruins to give backup goaltender Anton Khudobin his first start of the campaign, at least to shake things up a bit, but so far it hasn't been confirmed either way if it'll be him or Rask between the pipes. After that meeting (the last one of the season between these ancient rivals), Boston will be in Arizona (0-1-1) on Saturday night (9, NESN) and the three-game road trip concludes in Las Vegas (2-0-0) on Sunday night (7, NESN). They simply can't lose back-to-back games in regulation to the lowly Avalanche and hopefully they can earn at least two or three points in the latter two tilts against other presumable Western Conference bottom-feeders.
PS goodnight Red Sox, at least you weren't swept this season in the first round of the playoffs! Fire Farrell.
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