Georgiev Pulled In Avalanche’s 8-4 Loss to Vegas on Opening Night

On a night when all eyes were on the Avalanche’s top six — where the top story coming out of training camp was the lack of depth without Artturi Lehkonen, Valeri Nichushkin, or Gabriel Landeskog, the narrative quickly shifted to the performance between the pipes.

For the first time in three years, Alexandar Georgiev suffered a loss in the season opener with the Avs. And it wasn’t anywhere close to being the type of game that inspires confidence.

Georgiev surrendered five goals on 16 shots in Wednesday’s 8-4 loss to the Vegas Golden Knights at T-Mobile Arena. He was pulled after the second period and watched from the bench as the backup, Justus Annunen, only stopped three of five shots the rest of the way.

Meanwhile, on offense, the Avs’ top guys pulled through. Mikko Rantanen scored a hat trick — the first three-goal game in a season opener for Colorado in eight years (Joe Colborn, 2016). Still without a contract extension, Rantanen scored three one-timers off of feeds from Nathan MacKinnon and Cale Makar (twice).

The other goal came from Casey Mittelstadt, who was a bright spot for Colorado despite playing with different wingers a times throughout the night. Mittelstadt spent the majority of the game at even strength on a line where he’s suddenly the veteran of the group. He was flanked by rookies Nikolai Kovalenko and Calum Ritchie. The trio had a strong start but didn’t do much in the later stages of the game.

On the shift where Mittelstadt scored, he had Ross Colton and Kovalenko playing the wing. It’s a sign that head coach Jared Bednar will not shy away from trying different things until he gets one or both of Artturi Lehkonen and Valeri Nichushkin back. Neither is likely to return until November.

Following Rantanen’s first tally, which gave the Avs a 1-0 lead, the Golden Knights quickly responded thanks to a goal from Victor Olofsson. The newcomer beat Georgiev on a tough angle with a shot that the goaltender will likely want to have back. Georgiev was down and kept the short side open for Olofsson, who later added another tally with a snipe in the closing seconds of the second period.

Vegas then added two goals in 25 seconds in the final minutes of the first. It was a rare shift where Colorado’s top line let in two goals to Vegas’ top line. On the second goal, a 2-on-1 play that finished up with a tally for captain Mark Stone, Makar found himself in no man’s land after pinching at the blue line. The result of his miscue was Devon Toews getting stuck trying to stop Jack Eichel and Stone.

The trailing forward on the play was MacKinnon, but he let up for just a second and it was enough for Eichel to get away. Two rare mistakes from two players at the top of the lineup. Vegas took a 3-1 lead into the break.

But from there, each time Colorado responded, the Golden Knights added another goal to keep them out of reach. It was suddenly 3-2 after Rantanen’s second goal, but then it quickly became 4-2. Then when Mittelstadt made it 4-3, the Knights made it 5-3 on the Oloffson PP goal.

Then in the third period, Rantanen made it 5-4 only for the Knights to get one, then two past Annunen to pull ahead 7-4. Then, an empty netter after nearly five minutes of 6-on-5 play for Bednar’s club.

Colorado will need to turn the page as it prepares for its home opener on Saturday against the Columbus Blue Jackets. The Avs will play the next four games at Ball Arena in a seven-game span where they were so dominant a season ago.