The Colorado Avalanche lost 4-3 in overtime to the Ottawa Senators after battling back from a 2-0 first-period deficit.
Shane Pinto and Tim Stützle gave Ottawa an early two-goal lead, putting Colorado in a difficult position.
In the second period, Artturi Lehkonen got the Avalanche on the board to cut the deficit to one.
Then, in the third, Parker Kelly tied the game before Gabriel Landeskog gave Colorado a brief lead. However, Drake Batherson scored to even things up again, and Pinto ultimately sealed the Senators’ victory with an overtime goal.
After the game, some Avalanche elements spoke to the media about the loss. Among them was head coach Jared Bednar.
Below is the full transcript of Bednar‘s postgame interview.
Jared Bednar: Avalanche Showed ‘a Pretty Gutsy Effort’ vs. Senators
Question: You found yourselves in a difficult situation heading into the third period, but you scored a couple of power-play goals and a shorthanded goal. How would you assess your special teams performance tonight?
Answer: Great. Yeah, I mean, the penalty kill comes up big, kills them all off and gets a shorthanded goal. The power play delivers a couple of times, too, and gets us back in the game and gives us the lead. I liked the effort all the way around. We played a good hockey team. We were also without a couple of horses for half the game, so it was a pretty gutsy effort from our group. I’ll take it.
I mean, we weren’t perfect. We made some mistakes, and they cost us. But all in all, we’re pretty happy with the game and what we did. It’s a big point.
Q: Scott (Wedgewood) said this was an opportunity to build character. How would you characterize that aspect of the game?
A: Well, I don’t judge our team on results alone. You know that about me. I want to see the effort, commitment, and work. There’s a lot of things we can clean up from that game, but this is a competitive league, and that’s what I want to see right now. We’ll keep working on all the other stuff, but that’s where it starts for me.
We’ve put together a nice string of games here when it comes to effort, compete level, and commitment to defending. We’ll clean up a couple of mistakes, but I thought this was a good game, especially after some setbacks. It was a good step in the right direction. We gave ourselves a chance to win. It wasn’t perfect, much like our team, but we battled.
Q: What’s it like trying to figure out your power-play units and lines without those guys?
A: I think we had a good idea of what we were going to do. Sam Malinski was the obvious choice to step in on the second power-play unit on the back end, and we moved a couple of things around. Obviously, it worked with what we did.
Hopefully, those guys get back in the lineup soon, but I don’t know what their situations will be like.
Avalanche HC Jared Bednar Gets Honest on Effort After Senators Loss