Avalanche not interested in moral victories, especially in playoffs

NASHVILLE -- The Colorado Avalanche were right there again. They were pressuring the Nashville Predators again.
But they came up short again.
"Yeah, we played hard. But we lost," forward Nathan MacKinnon said. "So, it doesn't really matter."
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The Avalanche weren't in the mood to talk about moral victories because in the Stanley Cup Playoffs, there aren't any. Despite scoring two goals in the third period, the Avalanche lost 5-4 in Game 2 of the Western Conference First Round at Bridgestone Arena. They trail 2-0 in the best-of-7 series.
"We were in the game and had a couple of great chances to extend the lead in the first or second," forward Mikko Rantanen said. "It's disappointing, obviously."
The Avalanche fought hard despite missing another player; defenseman Sam Girard was ruled out with an upper-body injury as warmups began. Girard, who had 22:07 of ice time in Game 1 on Thursday, is day to day. It was a tough loss for the Avalanche, who are already without goaltender Semyon Varlamov and defenseman Erik Johnson.
"Yeah, it's a big loss," Rantanen said. "[Girard] is a great guy, great player and he's a really offensive defenseman. He's helping us in the offensive zone and defensively he's in the right spot. But you always get injuries in the playoffs, so we can't whine about that. Guys have to step up."

Avalanche coach Jared Bednar was happy with defenseman Duncan Siemens, who replaced Girard. MacKinnon was outstanding, scoring his first goal of the postseason and assisting on forward Gabriel Landeskog's power-play goal. MacKinnon received 24:58 of ice time and had six shots on goal. Landeskog played 19:30 and had five shots on goal.
"Those guys, they fought to the bitter end," Bednar said. "Got us a couple of goals late."
But any mistake the Avalanche made and any space they allowed cost them. Predators forward Austin Watson scored his second goal in as many games off a bad Avalanche line change. The Predators also scored two 4-on-4 goals in the second period.

"We handed them a couple of goals," Bednar said. "The one on the change late, we had time and we threw it over by our bench and they got one there. Not getting above the puck on the one 4-on-4, we can't do that. It's too hard and too competitive to find ice to create scoring chances. We have to find a way to be a little bit better and clean up a couple of mistakes."
"Obviously a tough building, but we've done a good job handling it," MacKinnon said. "We scored plenty of goals, just made errors on defense that ultimately cost us the game. Hopefully we can clean them up and home and snag two there."
The Avalanche will host Game 3 on Monday (10 p.m. ET; NBCSN, TVAS, SN, ALT, FS-TN). They'll draw energy from Pepsi Center, where they were 28-11-2 this season. MacKinnon had 67 points (27 goals, 40 assists) at home, compared to 30 on the road (12 goals, 18 assists). Rantanen was also much more productive at home, with 55 points (20 goals, 35 assists) compared to 29 (nine goals, 20 assists) on the road.

The Avalanche came close to at least leaving Nashville with a split. But being close doesn't provide much solace.
"We're going to put our best foot forward and away we go," Bednar said. "To me, we clean up a couple of mistakes, we win that game. That's the way I look at it. We're certainly capable of cleaning up a couple of those mistakes that we gave them the easy ones on and we can continue to get better offensively."