Avalanche-Oilers Postgame Takeaways: NHL ain’t that easy, kid

EDMONTON, Alberta – Adam Werner finished the game he couldn’t start, and couldn’t finish the game he did start.

That’s life in the NHL, son. Everybody gets humbled at some point.

It seemed like the Adam Werner Cinderella story might last more than 48 hours, though. Connor McDavid was feelin’ it on Thursday night, though, so no.

Werner, who made 40 saves in his NHL debut Tuesday as an emergency replacement, allowed five goals on 18 shots – three of them by McDavid – in a lopsided Avs loss to the Edmonton Oilers at Rogers Place.

In absolute fairness to Werner, none of this was much his fault. McDavid, Leon Draisaitl and Ryan-Nugent Hopkins – two former No. 1 overall picks and a No. 3 right there – were all over the score sheet.

Like, literally all over it. McDavid – three goals, three assists, a career-high six-point night. Draisaitl – five assists. Nugent-Hopkins – two goals.

These nights will happen to any goalie. Werner, though, didn’t want it to come that quick.

I counted only one real bad goal allowed by Werner – the last one, to McDavid, at 8:32 of the second. That goal chased him from the game in favor of Antoine Bibeau, who just like Werner two nights ago, made his Avs career debut and stopped nine of 10 shots.

“Shit happens,” Werner said. “That’s the thing about this sport. Some nights you have the bounces with you and some nights it’s on the other side.”

I asked Werner if he was mad at himself over any of the goals and he said, “It’s hard to say right now. I have to see them. Some of them I can do a better job at. I have to learn and do better. All you can do is get back to work and try to do better.”

OTHER TAKEAWAYS AND OBSERVATIONS AND NOTES

• All the injury updates from earlier in the day still apply. If you missed them, they’re here.
• Pierre-Edouard Bellemare did return to the lineup, after getting that concussion on a hit from Nick Foligno. That’s obviously a really nice break for him and the Avs.
• Jayson Megna was the lone healthy scratch as a forward.
• The streak of futility continues for Valeri Nichushkin. He had a really good scoring chance in the first period, but put a shot right into Mike Smith’s breadbasket. That’s 88 straight games without a goal now.
• It’s also great news that Pavel Francouz doesn’t seem to be seriously hurt. I bumped into him between periods tonight (not literally, but you know what I mean) and he seemed in good spirits.
• The Avs will hold a practice in Vancouver Friday morning.
• Also bumped into former Av Chris Dingman in the morning. He was going to play some pick-up hockey in the early afternoon.
• This was a game in which I thought to myself: “The Avs are missing Nikita Zadorov and/or any kind of physical deterrent.” Zach Kassian runs Nathan MacKinnon on the first shift of the game, fights Matt Calvert then laughs on the way to the bench, then slashes the goalies a couple of times later in the game. Nobody did a thing to Kassian or any other Oiler. Calvert tried, but Kassian is about 75 pounds heavier. The Avs have been pushed around too much lately, and a guy like Big Z would help other teams think twice about that. Yes, the game has obviously changed, with fighting pretty much gone. But you still can’t be pushed around in this league with nothing done about it.
• Avs PK – 2-for-6. Not good enough there.
• Jared  Bednar, who has been battling a bad cold the last couple of days, mostly just said his team didn’t check hard enough and just got outplayed by some real good players on the other side. I think, after that first period, the team just kind of packed it in. Not saying they “quit”, but I just think they never thought they had a chance after that period was done.
• Nazem Kadri would have made it a 4-2 game after the first, but his goal was a fraction of a second after the buzzer.
• Vladislav Kamenev hit the crossbar with a shot in the second period that also would have made it a 4-2 game. The Avs, offensively, really weren’t that bad. Mike Smith had to make some tough saves – and he also got a little lucky.
• Oilers coach Dave Tippett, on whether he’s ever seen two of his players have 6- and 5-point nights in the same game before? “I’m going to go out on a limb here and say I haven’t had that one.”
• This chart shows why Corsi flow charts are often garbage as a way to analyze a hockey game:

• Here’s Bednar’s postgame presser: