Avs search for answers after Blues tie series

Nathan Mackinnon saw a team that just couldn’t get up the ice with its usual speed. Couldn’t generate quality scoring chances. Couldn’t get in a flow. That wasn’t them.

“We were bad,” Avalanche forward acknowledged after a 4-1 loss to the Blues that tied the second-round series at a game apiece Thursday. “Really bad.”

The Blues made all the right moves — from shuffling their lines to generate more offense to finding a way to clog up the middle and frustrate the Avalanche’s fast flyers.

It’s now the Avs’ move in this high stakes game of chess on ice, with the series shifting to St. Louis for Game 3 on Saturday.

Everything’s on the table, too, for the top seed in the West. That includes line changes and possibly swapping out players.

“You’re not going to win in the playoffs if you don’t bring your best game,” Avalanche coach Jared Bednar said Friday after practice. “We weren’t even close last night and it’s on us . .... Our best game is to be determined.”

First order of business: Finding a way to create more space for Mackinnon and defenseman Cale Makar to maneuver. The Blues made it awfully difficult for them through the neutral zone in Game 2. Makar has yet to register a point after a threegoal, seven-assist series in a first-round sweep of Nashville.

College basketball: All-big Ten forward Trayce Jackson-davis will return to Indiana next season after withdrawing from the NBA draft. Jackson-davis still has two years of eligibility remaining.

Tennis: The women’s and men’s pro tours say they will not award ranking points for Wimbledon this year because of the All England Club’s ban on players from Russia and Belarus over the invasion of Ukraine. The WTA and ATP announced their decisions two days before the start of the French Open and a little more than a month before Wimbledon begins.