10 Observations: No Excuses For Avs Game 5 Loss

The Avalanche looked to replicate their dominating Game 4 win, but instead repeated some of the same mistakes from the Game 3 loss.

Colorado braced for a heavy-hitting Game 5 back at the American Airlines Center on Monday night, and that’s what Dallas brought. The ice seemed less than pristine, which may have caused some unlucky bounces against the Avs. Also, highly questionable penalties were called. But excuses aside, the team lacked in a few areas.

Good & Bad: On The Brink of Elimination — Avalanche No-Show in Game 5 Loss

“I didn’t think we had the best execution to start the game, and even throughout the game, to be honest. There were some plays where almost uncharacteristic mistakes here and there, but stuff’s going to happen,” Gabriel Landeskog said. “It was more some of the sort out, some of the routes we took and gave up some odd man rushes more than usual, just a bit uncharacteristic. So we’re going to clean that up here come Thursday.”

What else went wrong, besides the Stars getting production from their top players, finally?

10 Observations

1. The power play has been ineffective, and that needs to be fixed. The Avs went 0-3 with only six shots on goal — one from Cale Makar, four from Nathan MacKinnon and one from Martin Necas. They need to be better on the man-advantage.

2. MacKinnon’s goal came on the shift with Landeskog and Necas. Time for the captain to retake his throne on the top line?

3. Jake Oettinger owned Makar. The elite defenseman had four shots on goal that Oettinger nabbed as if he knew exactly where they were going. Makar only has two points over five games and is a minus-3. Talk about uncharacteristic. The team is in dire need of his offensive contribution.

4. MacKinnon is not the only player who can score goals. Yet he consistently has the highest number of SOG. He had seven, while the next closest was Makar with four. Can’t win games if you don’t shoot the puck — and it can’t be just one or two players.

5. Battling for the puck was chaotic at times throughout the game. There was no ease of flow with puck handling or management.

“We weren’t great on the defensive side of things, some decision-making,” head coach Jared Bednar said.

6. Officiating was not good. There, I said it. As my colleague Aarif Deen said in his Good & Bad, there were some highly questionable penalties called on the Avalanche that could have been embellishment calls on those “infracted.”

7. A few players need to break out of their slumps. This is playoff time, and as coach Jared Bednar said, “You can’t have guys having bad nights this time of the year.”

8. Mackenzie Blackwood did not play his best game. He knows, and it didn’t help his confidence with bad luck goals. Hopefully, he’ll bounce back quickly and return to the goaltender who shut out the Stars in Game 4.

9. The Stars played as hungry and determined as the Avs did in Game 4. Now they’re up a game in the series. If the Avs can get back to that Game 4 form and not stray from it in the next two games, they will advance. There is no room for error in the postseason. They need to play their best hockey and Monday night’s loss was not close to it.

10. The most positive note of the game was Scott Wedgewood’s performance when put in for the third period. He has not played since April 13 and stopped eight shots in his first postseason action since May 23, 2023.