Avs Unhappy With Performance In Montreal

MONTREAL--There is no way else to put it; it wasn't pretty.
The Colorado Avalanche was down by five goals after the first period and lost 10-1 to the Montreal Canadiens on Saturday night at Bell Centre.

"Disappointing probably doesn't even do it justice, either," said team captain Gabriel Landeskog. "It was embarrassing and, yeah, we got our ass whooped tonight."
The Canadiens came out strong and scored five goals on their first 13 shots in the opening 8:41 of action. Montreal's early tallies came from it winning battles down, registering markers off Colorado's errors. The Habs then got some bounces with some nice deflections and a breakaway after an Avs defenseman got tripped up at his own blue line.
Blake Comeau notched the only goal for the Avalanche with 13 seconds left in the opening stanza, tipping in Nikita Zadorov's point shot.
"The start, when they score six in the first period, it's horrible," said Nathan MacKinnon. "We just couldn't dig ourselves out of a hole after goal after goal. It was tough."
Said head coach Jared Bednar: "We weren't prepared to start the game. They're the best team in the league with the best record at home, and we're all the way down the standings and we weren't prepared to play."
Landeskog took little solace in the fact that the Avs lost to the league-leading Canadiens. The Avs should have been ready to go against a club that has only lost once in regulation at home all season.
"Obviously, they're a good team," Landeskog said. "They're a fast team. They came out and played hard and took it to us, but you got to be able to withstand a little bit of pressure as well. It felt like everything they were throwing at the net, we weren't ready [for]. We weren't picking up sticks. We weren't sealing them out at the net, and then once they got rolling [it was] frustrating."
Bednar tried to light a fire under his players by replacing starting goaltender Calvin Pickard with Semyon Varlamov after Montreal went up 3-0 at 7:12 of the first, but it didn't seem to work. The Habs netted six more goals and Pickard reentered the contest for the third period.
Varlamov was previously scheduled to get the start for Sunday's matchup in Toronto against the Maple Leafs.
"That's not on the goaltending either," Bednar said. "If you look at the mistakes we made and the way we were playing, it was inevitable. We pulled Pick to maybe and try and spark our team. That didn't work, so we put him back in. He had a good third."
There is nothing the Avalanche can do now other than turn the page and move forward.
The team will have the benefit of only having to dwell on the loss for one night's sleep as it takes on the Maple Leafs in less than 24 hours.
"That's the beauty of the game, we get another chance at redeeming ourselves tomorrow," Landeskog said. "I guess if you're going to look at it a positive way, whether we [lose] 3-2 or we [lose] 10-1, it's still two points being lost. We're just going to have to reload.
"This was a tough one, but we got to come out and respond tomorrow."

QUEBEC HOMECOMING

The Avalanche only comes to Quebec once a year, so it's a special game for those on the team that grew up in the province.
Defenseman Francois Beauchemin is from the city of Sorel, roughly an hour north of Montreal, and had some of his friends and family in the stands at Bell Centre on Saturday night.
"It's always nice. We only play here once a year, so when we do come, we try and enjoy it as much as we can," Beauchemin said. "It's always a big, special game that you circle at the start of the season."
Beauchemin was drafted 75th overall by the Canadiens in 1998 and played his first-ever NHL game with the franchise on Feb. 27, 2003. It was the only contest he played with the Original Six team.
"Luckily for me it was here. I got called up the morning of the game. Two defensemen got sick, so I got to play that night," he recalled. "I had a bunch of people at the game, and that was just a dream come true for me."
On Saturday, Beauchemin gave back to his local community, as he invited the local youth team that he played for when he was growing up to the Avs' morning skate. He signed autographs and took pictures with the young kids as he left the ice following the optional practice.

IGINLA'S MILESTONE

Colorado forward Jarome Iginla played in his 1,500th NHL contest on Saturday night, becoming the 16th player in league history to accomplish the feat.
"It is one of those you don't really think about on the way," Iginla said of the milestone. "As it approaches and I get there, or get really close, it definitely makes me appreciate how fortunate I have been and to play this long and play that amount of games. At the start you don't think about it like that, you are just playing. It is one also that I'm very thankful of because a lot of that is out of our control (staying healthy), and I've been very fortunate and lucky."
Next up for the 39-year-old on the all-time games played list is Steve Yzerman, who is in 15th after with 1,514 contests. Iginla could also realistically pass Brendan Shanahan (1,524), Johnny Bucyk (1,540) and Alex Delvecchio (1,549) on the list to move into 12th place by the end of the season.