Colorado Avalanche
Good & Bad: Avs Overall Effort Improves in OT Loss to Jets

The Avalanche have not been able to score on Connor Hellebuyck this season until Wednesday night. Colorado got two past the Winnipeg Jets netminder but it wasn’t enough in the 3-2 overtime loss.
The Avs continued to struggle on the power play and did not convert in a scoreless first period. Hellebuyck made nine saves while Mackenzie Blackwood stopped eight shots.
Nathan MacKinnon got the Avs on the board first by grabbing his own rebound off the post and beating Hellebuyck glove-side at 13:52 of the second period.
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Winnipeg forward David Gustafsson beat Keaton Middleton off the puck, shot it on Blackwood and Morgan Barron managed past Juuso Parssinen to deflect the rebound and tie the game.
Jets forward Gabriel Vilardi put Winnipeg up by one with a minute and 16 seconds left in the middle frame. Sam Girard got bumped off the puck by Vilardi who snagged Josh Morrissey’s rebound and slid it past Blackwood who had just picked up his stick.
The lone goal in the third came with seven minutes left from Cale Makar who took a cross-ice pass from Mikko Rantanen. As he was falling to the ice, he ripped a shot past Hellebuyck and then crashed into the boards.
Seventeen seconds into overtime Neal Pionk launched a slapshot to beat Blackwood top shelf.
Good: Balanced effort from all four lines
The Avs played a better overall game and made fewer mistakes than they have in other recent losses. It came down to a goalie battle and Hellebuyck won. Blackwood made 22 saves while the Jets goalie made 25.
“Competed hard. I liked our game. You always want it to be better. But, yeah, I can’t fault our effort, our competitiveness tonight, but did a lot of good things. Hellebuyck was good again. We generated enough to win the game, we kept their chances down,” head coach Jared Bednar said.
Bad: Costly defensive mistakes
Both Jets regulation goals were produced by breakdowns in front of the net. Middleton and Parssinen failed to check Gustafsson and Barron, respectively, which led to the puck ending up in the back of the net. Morrissey was open to shoot and Vilardi got open by knocking off Girard.
“We just had to be better defensively, moving our feet,” Cale Makar said. “Felt at times tonight we were moving our feet and gave up a couple odd-man rushes and those ones hurt us.”