COLD HARBOUR
The fact that Sidney Crosby and Nathan MacKinnon are from the same town in Nova Scotia was completely inescapable coming into the game. We'd imagine they mentioned it a few times on NBC Sports Network, as well. Neither recorded a point—the first such occurrence this season for Crosby, who still has a league-leading 17 in eight games. He was fantastic in the first period, putting five pucks on the net and coming within a foot or so of four points, but he cooled off after that. He nearly broke MacKinnon's ankles in the second period, for what that's worth.
NO SHOT
The Avs have the best record in the league (8-1-0) despite drastically getting outshot, and Monday was no different. Coming into the game, Colorado had only taken 46.4 percent of all shot attempts in their games, 24th in the league. Monday was more of the same—Pittsburgh had 72 attempts to the Avs' 29; the official shot total was 34-14. Colorado does a lot of things right, and its goalies have been outstanding, but that disparity can't continue. It'll start losing sooner or later.
POWERLESS
Pittsburgh came into the game with a 28 percent success rate on the power play, second in the league, and promptly went 0-for-7. It also allowed Gabriel Landeskog's game-winning goal as he came out of the box in the second period. A healthy portion of Colorado's 22 blocked shots came when it was down a man. Jean-Sebastien Giguere, obviously, was fantastic in net, as he's been all season. Maybe that oversized equipment was holding him down.
