What's Wrong with the Colorado Avalanche?

Two games in a row, the Colorado Avalanche came flying out of the gate to wallop their opponent.

Two games in a row, the Colorado Avalanche went home with zero points.

Hockey is a 60-minute game. Right now, the Avalanche are playing a 40-minute game.

Up 4-3 at the end of the second period against the lowly Oilers, Colorado decided to stop trying and lost 6-4.

Last night, they gave an encore, blowing a 2-1 third period lead en route to an embarrassing 5-2 loss to Vancouver. 

I thought this was supposed to be a young, hard-working, enthusiastic team.

Last year if they blew a lead, who cares? It was a geezer team with a boatload of players going through the motions to get a check in the mail.

That's not the case anymore. This year, the roster is almost exclusively filled with players who are looking, or at least should be looking, to establish themselves as NHL players.

For the most part, they've shown promise. A 13-7-3 record is a tremendous accomplishment for a team many fans called a "lock" for projected 2010 first overall draft choice Taylor Hall.

What's troubling isn't the 10 losses, it's how many of them came in winnable games.

The Avalanche are 1-4-1 in their last six games, and they can attribute that record to their play in the third period: out shot 49-36 and outscored 14-3 in the five losses.

Two-period hockey doesn't win games, and that's what Colorado is playing right now. They could be 16-5-2 right now if they wouldn't have blown three third-period leads (against Chicago, Edmonton, and Vancouver) in the last five games.

At this stage in the season, one has only two choices.

They can be satisfied with the knowledge that Craig Anderson has established himself as a No. 1 goalie, and also that youngsters David Jones, Ryan O'Reilly, and (more recently) Matt Duchene have shown promising skills that will elevate them to marquee players for the Avalanche in due time.

Or, they can watch in horror as the Avalanche's season slips away simply because it's players don't care enough during closing time.