The Colorado Avalanche experienced their first pair of regulation losses this season. It was also the first time that the Avalanche had lost consecutive games since April 2025. On Tuesday night, the Avalanche took on the Tampa Bay Lightning and struggled to get their legs moving. It was a difficult road trip for the Avalanche, losing Gabriel Landeskog, Devon Toews, Joel Kiviranta, and Mackenzie Blackwood all to injury. But now the Avalanche will head home after their 4–2 loss to the Lightning and have a nice long seven-game home stand.

View from the Mountaintop

Colorado had no legs coming into the last game of the road trip. They were playing their third game in only four days, with two of them against the toughest teams in the East. The Avs’ best players on ice Tuesday were on the fourth line. When there was a backcheck, they were typically the ones doing it. Jake Guentzel of the Lightning scored a late goal in the first period. Parker Kelly led the way in the second with a strong shift about three minutes into the period. Kelly took a shot and followed his rebound and thew the shot behind Andrei Vasilevskiy. Ilya Solovyov had the secondary assist, and it would be his first point as an Avalanche.


Special teams made an enormous difference in the game. The first goal by Guentzel was on the power play, while the Avalanche could not convert again. They had two chances for a power-play opportunity, and the Avalanche did not convert. Those two goals were the difference in the game and cost them the victory in Tampa. Although at the end of the penalty for Zakhar Bardakov, Colorado was clearing the puck and almost had a shorthanded goal. Brock Nelson was just getting the puck on net and it floated through Vasilevskiy for the goal.


During play, the Avalanche encountered difficulty defending the right portion of their zone. The Lightning scored twice from almost identical positions, exploiting Scott Wedgewood’s vulnerability. Colorado needs to do a better job of blocking the backdoor and eliminating the high-danger shots. This has been a consistent issue over the last two games for the Avalanche.

Up Next

The Avalanche finally come home and play the Ottawa Senators on Thursday at 7 p.m. MT. Local KTVD My20 and Altitude Sports will broadcast the game.