DENVER — An eerie silence, interrupted only by the humming of a power generator, hung over the deserted plaza outside Ball Arena. The Colorado state flag flapped lazily in the soft breeze, and the lights of a Lyft pickup station flickered. A metal barrier on Chopper Avenue lay toppled on its side. There was no need to fix it.
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A passerby would hardly have a clue that, inside the building, the most anticipated Avalanche season in more than a decade was set to begin.
Wednesday night, which ended in a 4-1 Colorado loss, should’ve been a popular spectacle. The Avalanche, entering the game with one of the league’s deepest rosters and a Stanley Cup-or-bust mindset, hosted the division-rival Blues, a team less than two years removed from the Stanley Cup. But because of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, which delayed the season’s start and led to a condensed 56-game schedule, no fans were allowed inside.
On the indoor concourse, there were hardly more clues that a special event was happening. Only one concession stand was open, outside Section 114. It served boxed meals — pork carnitas and rice with a blondie brownie — to team employees. The Colorado Mammoth pro lacrosse 2019-2020 home schedule hung next to a women’s restroom. Out of date, but no one was there to notice.
Moments before star center Nathan MacKinnon and the Avalanche took the ice for pregame warmups, the Dropkick Murphys song “The Boys are Back” played.
They were about the only ones.
“You have to make your own energy,” defenseman Ian Cole said before the game. “We’re not going to be able to rely on our great fans to bring the energy and help pump us up. We’re going to have to do it ourselves. Those momentum swings are going to have to be taken care of by us and no one else.”
The energy wasn’t there for the Avalanche on Wednesday. Coach Jared Bednar said that no matter how hard players compete during preseason camp, it’s a different level of intensity against an actual opponent.
His team wasn’t up to the task against the Blues.
“We just got outworked, right from the start,” the coach said. “Not ready to go. Lazy habits. Hoping that it was going to be easier than what it was. And it showed.”
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The last time the teams played came in the Edmonton bubble — another fanless environment — and the Avalanche won 2-1 after a pair of third-period goals, including a winner by Nazem Kadri with a tenth of a second left. Opening night couldn’t have looked more different. The Avalanche jumped to an early 1-0 lead after an Andre Burakovsky power-play goal, but St. Louis followed by scoring twice in the first, including one off of a sloppy Colorado play in the defensive zone.
“We didn’t have our legs,” forward Mikko Rantanen said. “I feel like we were not good enough in the battles, and we were just losing too many battles and giving up too many chances.”
Rantanen noted that the Avalanche found a bit of a groove in the second period. They had 15 shots, compared with only five in the first, but none found the net. Defenseman Samuel Girard got off a few good shots from the point, and MacKinnon darted through the Blues defense but was stopped by St. Louis goaltender Jordan Binnington. Twice during the period, the artificial crowd noise pumped through the speakers for a few seconds. Clanking sticks and grunts from players echoed off empty seats, as if the players were taking part in a private scrimmage.
In the third, the Blues put away the game. A Girard turnover behind the net led to a Kyle Clifford goal, his first with the Blues. Then Oskar Sundqvist, playing on the second line in the place of Mike Hoffman, who is still waiting on approval for his work visa, scored his second goal of the night after Philipp Grubauer misplayed the puck.
“They deserved to win the game, no question,” Bednar said. “Hopefully that’s a big wake-up call for our team.”
“Everybody has to look in the mirror a little bit and just be better in every area,” Rantanen said.
Expectations for Bednar’s team are as high as possible. Betting outlets list the Avalanche as the favorites to win the Stanley Cup, and the last time MacKinnon played in NHL games, he was on an absolute tear. Last year’s Hart Trophy runner-up scored 25 points in 15 playoff games. But for the second consecutive year, the Avalanche fell in the Western Conference semifinals. They lost in a Game 7 overtime heartbreaker with third-string goalie Michael Hutchinson in net.
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“We’ve thought back to the way the season ended last year, and I think that left a very sour taste in our mouth,” Cole said during training camp. “There can be a lot of excuses made about injuries or ‘we almost came back’ or ‘we lost in Game 7 in overtime.’ And I think you can say that all those are all positives, but I think what it came down to is that we lost. We weren’t able to advance.”
To make it far in the playoffs this year and meet their lofty goals, the Avalanche will need to beat hard-nosed, physical teams like the Blues.
“It’s compete level,” Rantanen said. “It’s not system or anything. It’s in your head mentally. You have to be prepared. St. Louis plays like that every year. They’re a heavy team who checks hard, so we have to respond to that.”
The Avalanche will have another chance Friday, when they’ll finish their two-game set with the Blues at the empty Ball Arena.
After the final horn, the public address announcer wished everyone a good night and a safe trip home. No fans were there to hear the message, and the Avalanche were off the ice and in the dressing room, thoroughly outplayed.
(Photo: Dustin Bradford / Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)
