Weak Penalty Kill Leads to First Avs Home Loss

The Avalanche hit a bit of a speed bump against the Edmonton Oilers, losing their first game at home after giving up a procession of power play goals. Anderson had a season high goals against in the 5-3 pummeling.

Although they were once again outshot (expected at this point), the Avs had their chances. Paul Stastny had a wide-open net at one point, but his shot was stopped by an Edmonton defender. Despite the score, Anderson was still making some big saves for his team, the team just really needs to work on their penalty kill. It was easily the worst it’s looked all season, and the Oilers were able to do whatever they wanted with the puck.

The only bright spot is that Colorado was able to put up some points against Avs-killer Nikolai Khabibulin. Marek Svatos continued what I think will be one of his mini-streaks with a pretty goal in the first period. David Jones and TJ Hensick also scored for the Avalanche, who despite the loss are now tied atop the league standings with the San Jose Sharks.

Milan Hejduk missed the game with a sore back.