Colorado Avalanche still winless due to injuries, poor defensive performance in recent loss

DENVER (AP) — The Colorado Avalanche entered the season as a serious Stanley Cup contender. Three games into the campaign they are winless and searching for answers.

Colorado dropped to 0-3 after a 6-2 home loss to the New York Islanders on Monday night to extend its early-season funk. The Avalanche have allowed 20 goals – 17 with a goaltender between the pipes – despite having Cale Makar and reigning league MVP Nathan MacKinnon on the roster.

Colorado has been through tough stretches before. They began 2021-22 losing three of the first four before going on to win the Stanley Cup, but it’s not a comfort to coach Jared Bednar.

“Yeah, every year, multiple times,” Bednar said. “I just don’t like it because it’s at the start of the year.”

The first two losses this year – 8-4 at Vegas and 6-4 against Columbus on Saturday night – were due in large part to poor goaltending. Alexandar Georgiev, who led the NHL with 38 wins last season, was pulled from both losses and has allowed eight goals on 25 shots through the first two games.

He was better against New York despite allowing five goals, but it was the play in front of Georgiev that was the issue Monday night.

“I thought that was the worst defensive game of the three by a mile,” Bednar said. “It looked like we were cheating the game. If you’re going to cheat it for offense, then things aren’t going to look good defensively.”

Makar, a former Norris Trophy winner, was minus three and committed a turnover that led to a short-handed goal and a 4-1 lead for the Islanders.

“I'm just not moving my feet, not playing my game,” Makar said. “I’m hard on myself, but at the end of the day, I’ve got to be better for these guys. It’s definitely a lot closer game if I don’t play tonight.”

Colorado is missing four of its top-six forwards and played Monday without Makar’s partner, Devon Toews. Gabe Landeskog (knee), Artturi Lehkonen (shoulder) and Valeri Nichushkin (suspension) have yet to play this season, and Jonathan Drouin has been out since the season opener with an upper-body injury that could keep him out for weeks.

The injuries have forced Bednar to play several rookies and other young players. Calum Ritchie, a 19-year-old winger, scored his first NHL goal on Monday night but didn’t do much else.

The schedule doesn’t get easier, but at least the Avalanche will be at home. Colorado hosts Boston and Anaheim on Wednesday and Friday with an opportunity to halt its losing skid.

“Just try to find a way, maybe, to simplify the game a little bit and just not try too hard ... because it seems like it’s not working for us now,” Mikko Rantanen said.

Colorado Avalanche defenseman Josh Manson, left, gets tangled up with New York Islanders right wing Maxim Tsyplakov in the third period of an NHL hockey game Monday, Oct. 14, 2024, in Denver. (AP Photo/David Zalubowski)

Colorado Avalanche goaltender Alexandar Georgiev looks to make a save in the third period of an NHL hockey game against the New York Islanders Monday, Oct. 14, 2024, in Denver. (AP Photo/David Zalubowski)

Colorado Avalanche head coach Jared Bednar, back, looks on from the team box in the third period of an NHL hockey game against the New York Islanders, Monday, Oct. 14, 2024, in Denver. (AP Photo/David Zalubowski)

LONDON (AP) — Thousands of tourists, pagans, druids and people simply yearning for the promise of spring marked the dawn of the shortest day of the year at the ancient Stonehenge monument on Saturday.

Revelers cheered and beat drums as the sun rose at 8:09 a.m. (0809 GMT) over the giant standing stones on the winter solstice — the shortest day and the longest night in the Northern Hemisphere. No one could see the sun through the low winter cloud, but that did not deter a flurry of drumming, chanting and singing as dawn broke.

There will be less than eight hours of daylight in England on Saturday — but after that, the days get longer until the summer solstice in June.

The solstices are the only occasions when visitors can go right up to the stones at Stonehenge, and thousands are willing to rise before dawn to soak up the atmosphere.

The stone circle, whose giant pillars each took 1,000 people to move, was erected starting about 5,000 years ago by a sun-worshiping Neolithic culture. Its full purpose is still debated: Was it a temple, a solar calculator, a cemetery, or some combination of all three?

In a paper published in the journal Archaeology International, researchers from University College London and Aberystwyth University said the site on Salisbury Plain, about 128 kilometers (80 miles) southwest of London, may have had political as well as spiritual significance.

That follows from the recent discovery that one of Stonehenge’s stones — the unique stone lying flat at the center of the monument, dubbed the “altar stone” — originated in Scotland, hundreds of miles north of the site. Some of the other stones were brought from the Preseli Hills in southwest Wales, nearly 240 kilometers (150 miles) to the west,

Lead author Mike Parker Pearson from UCL’s Institute of Archaeology said the geographical diversity suggests Stonehenge may have served as a “monument of unification for the peoples of Britain, celebrating their eternal links with their ancestors and the cosmos.”

A person holds up a smart phone as they wait for sunrise during the winter Solstice celebrations at Stonehenge, England, Saturday, Dec. 21, 2024. (AP Photo/Anthony Upton)

Arthur Pendragon poses for a portrait as he takes part in the winter solstice celebrations at Stonehenge, England, Saturday, Dec. 21, 2024. (AP Photo/Anthony Upton)

A person's face is daubed with blue paint as they take part in the winter Solstice celebrations at Stonehenge, England, Saturday, Dec. 21, 2024. (AP Photo/Anthony Upton)

A person's face is daubed with blue paint as they take part in the winter Solstice celebrations at Stonehenge, England, Saturday, Dec. 21, 2024. (AP Photo/Anthony Upton)

People take part in the winter Solstice celebrations at Stonehenge, England, Saturday, Dec. 21, 2024. (AP Photo/Anthony Upton)

People tale part in the winter Solstice celebrations at Stonehenge, England, Saturday, Dec. 21, 2024. (AP Photo/Anthony Upton)

People take part in the winter solstice celebrations during sunrise at Glastonbury Tor in Somerset, England, Saturday Dec. 21, 2024. (James Manning/PA via AP)

People take part in the winter solstice celebrations during sunrise at Glastonbury Tor in Somerset, England, Saturday Dec. 21, 2024. (James Manning/PA via AP)