Colorado Avalanche: Andre Burakovsky Scores Twice in Loss

The Colorado Avalanche lost against the Oilers in Edmonton, but the silver lining was Andre Burakovsky’s two goals.

The Colorado Avalanche lost the game in Edmonton by a score of 6-2. Connor McDavid scored a hat trick and had a point in all three of the other goals. Leon Draisaitl had a five-point night.

The game was so bad, rookie goalie Adam Werner, whose parents flew out to see him play, got yanked halfway through the game for what we all thought was an injured Antoine Bibeau.

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The defense was so bad, fans and pundits alike were “joking” that they were giving McDavid 100 feet of ice in respect. The penalty kill was even worse.

Jared Bednar was back to the ridiculous salad spinner approach to line making again. He turned one of the few highlights of the evening, the return of Pierre-Edouard Bellemare, into a minus. He tossed the concussed fourth-liner onto the third line, ousting Tyson Jost to do so. Bellemare had a brutal night.

And that’s on Bednar. He’s gotten a lot of credit throughout the years for riding Nathan MacKinnon’s coattails.

Anyway, the real highlights of the night were Andre Burakovsky’s two goals. The first one gave us hope that we might keep up the impossible dream of playing with a rookie AHL goalie (don’t forget — he’s a rookie at that level, too) and two-thirds of our top line missing… and still winning.

Well, that dream didn’t live much past the middle of the first period, but before that, Burakovsky ripped a wrist shot from the high slot just a minute-and-a-half into the game.

That really was a pretty goal. I like how Marc Moser and Peter McNab are talking about a player going into the middle to score, and Burakovsky does just that.

The second goal didn’t come with as much hope attached. It came later in the second period after McDavid had already earned his hat trick and the Avalanche were down 5-1.

Burakovsky’s second goal was a nice positional play. Drive the net, and good things will happen. (Unless you’re Pavel Francouz and Mark Scheifele is the one driving.)

Erik Johnson made the initial play, and goalie Mike Smith coughed up the rebound. Burakovsky just dove right in to score:

Less cheering after that goal because it only made the score 5-2. However, it was a nice goal just the same.

To be fair, the game wasn’t as lopsided as the score would lead you to believe. It was just the special teams that were lopsided. The Avs failed to capitalize on any of their power plays, and the Oilers converted on four of theirs.

You know, the Colorado Avalanche are a very injured team, and it looks sometimes like opponents are trying to up that injury total even higher. Early in the game, Zach Kassian laid our remaining star out with a huge hit:

And, as you can see, justice was swift in the form of Matt Calvert’s fists. I get fighting in hockey is very polarizing. And Zach Kassian did make one more questionable hit later in the game.

But the Oilers, like the Jets, looked ready to beat the stuffing out of the Avs until Calvert let them know it wouldn’t be tolerated. As long as the really big hits are allowed in the NHL, fighting needs to remain a part of the game.

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Anyway, the Colorado Avalanche are probably boarding their flight to Vancouver already. They’ll face the Canucks on Saturday night.

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