It's amazing how much can change over the course of one day.

Aves lose the St. Louis Blues 3-2.

The abs were coming off what might have been their best defensive performance of the year against Dallas,

and then their defense kind of collapsed against St. Louis in this one.

Now there are reasons for that, the two big ones being Kail McCarr's still not in the lineup, and it was a second game of back-to-back, but it still wasn't very fun to watch their defense collapse. And if the abs could just get out of their own way, we might have been talking about a different game entirely. The abs actually started this game well, what you want to see out of the gates in a back-to-back game. They're able to

score first off of a great play from Ross Colton to hit a puck out of midair into the

net, except Jack Drury was offside. No need for a referee rant or a nitpicking of problems. This is

just the Avs got to do better at being onside. It is directly on themselves to execute.

That called-back goal completely shifted the momentum early in the game.

The Blues kind of took over for the next 10 minutes of the first period, including scoring first.

There's a lot of bad at the start of this play, but it ultimately gets negated by a really good

back check from Cadry, who gets back and breaks up the initial

opportunity. The problem is the abs just manage the puck horribly here. As St. Louis

gets an initial couple of opportunities, you're going to see the abs completely collapsed

down on this play, and right about here, four guys on the goal line. That is not good defense

in any universe. Nate just also mishandles a puck that if he gets out, this is not a dangerous play. But as the abs defensive structure has completely fallen apart, the blues just kind of buzz around the top of the crease area. God, it even gets worse. What is this? What are you defending? What is going on? That leaves Robert Thomas open in the high slot,

and he makes it count. Would you like McKenzie Blackwood to smother that thing on one of those

shot attempts? I think so. But also, if you look at the way the abs played defense against

Dallas, they were rarely giving up a second chance opportunity, let alone a third and a fourth.

You do need to do a decent job of helping

your goalie, especially the way the abs defended way down deep in their own zone. You're

supposed to be in there to get those rebounds and the abs just failed to do so. Despite the

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