No team has ever gone 16-0 in the Stanley Cup playoffs, and the Colorado Avalanche will not do that either.

Aves lose to the Minnesota Wild 5-1 in game 3 to make it a 2-1 series.

I think it's okay to be straightforward here.

The aves were not any good in this game.

The vast majority of their lineup was not any good.

Part of that is Minnesota playing well. They're a good team, they get home ice, they get the matchups they want, and they showed up and played their best game of the series so far. Clearly outplayed the abs in this one. You don't have to get too complicated to understand the better team won this game. That isn't to say there wasn't weirdness. There was plenty of that. There were actually

no goals scored at 5 on 5 in this game. And given how good the abs have been at 5 on 5 this season,

you can kind of see how they weren't playing their best. At 5 on 5, the abs generated a total of

5 high danger chances, which is nothing. Against LA's supposed elite defense in the NHL, the abs were averaging 10 high danger chances a game,

which isn't some absurd number, but quite literally double what the abs generated in the last game.

They had 16 against Minnesota in game one, and they also only had five in game two, but that's a little bit of a different context where the abs led for the vast majority of the game.

The reality is the abs just didn't create anywhere near enough at five on five in this game.

And that starts with your best players.

I know they technically scored the abs one goal of this game and we'll get to that, but your best guys were simply not good enough and not dangerous tonight.

Even if you believe they somehow did their job well enough, you got outplayed by Minnesota's top guys.

Caprizov had three points. Cues had two points. Faber had three points.

On the avs side, McKinnon one point, Natchez, none, McCar, none.

And in some senses, it's okay to tip your cap and say Minnesota outplayed you.

But you also need to know that the the abs need to play better next game.

Problem wasn't just ability to score, though. The abs really did not generate anything.

The halfway point of the game, the abs had mustered just 11 shots on goal, and were getting outscored 3 to nothing.

They just only started really generating after Minnesota let their foot off

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