The Colorado Avalanche were blanked 6-0 by the New York Islanders on Tuesday night. The Avs (4-8-5) now have just one win in six games and one regulation win on the road this season (1-5-3).
“Obviously last year everything was bouncing our way,” coach Patrick Roy said post-game. “Right now, it’s tougher, but at the same time, I’ll say this: we need to stay together, we need to continue to work hard at the things that we’ve been doing well.
“Tonight was just a bad game and we need to regroup tomorrow, have a good practice and be ready for the Rangers.”
Nick Leddy and Anders Lee gave the Islanders a 2-0 lead after 20 minutes. Travis Hamonic and Nikolay Kulemin made it 4-0 after two periods. Then Casey Cizikas and Ryan Strome each added their firsts of the season in the third.
“They played really well, have to give them credit they were really intense,” Roy said. “They were jumping on a lot of pucks, they put pucks at the net, I mean they did a lot of good things.”
Semyon Varlamov allowed six goals on 46 shots and saw his record fall to 2-5-4 on the season. Jaroslav Halak made 20 saves for his 30th career shutout. The Islanders outshot the Avalanche 13-5 in the first period while Colorado had just 15 shots on goal in the final 40 minutes.
“It’s a team that’s much improved,” Roy said of the Islanders. “It’s a game where we were not at our best without a doubt. We knew we need to be better in order to win that type of game, for sure.”