The Avalanche couldn’t avenge themselves for the Lightning’s revenge.

When last year’s Stanley Cup combatants clashed last Thursday for the first time since the Final, Avalanche coach Jared Bednar thought Tampa brought a “playoff” level of grit and competitiveness that Colorado didn’t match. Understandable, considering the chip was on Tampa’s shoulders. The result was a 5-0 rout of the defending champs.

So the center of motivational gravity shifted back to Colorado’s dressing room for the next matchup five days later, fueling the Avs to one point but a 4-3 shootout loss to Tampa.

“I liked the game. I thought it was a relatively even-played hockey game,” Avalanche coach Jared Bednar said. “Two good teams. Both teams played hard. Both teams generated some good chances.”

Evan Rodrigues, Nathan MacKinnon and Mikko Rantanen couldn’t convert against Andrei Vasilevskiy in the shootout after Vasilevskiy sprinkled 43 saves throughout the night. He and Alexandar Georgiev made a sequence of exceptional saves late in regulation to force a more timid and uneventful 3-on-3 overtime period.

“It’s a tight game,” said Georgiev, who saved one of three shootout attempts. “You know you have to be sharp and make those big saves for your team. It was pretty fun. Shootout … it’s close.”

Unless they meet again in June, this closes the book on Colorado vs. Tampa for 2022-23 with a season sweep by the Lightning. The Avs (28-19-5) allowed 2-0 and 3-2 leads to slip through their fingers, and they have attained four of eight possible points since returning from the NHL All-Star break.

The Lightning equalized twice in the third period, first when Anthony Cirelli bolted to Georgiev’s net 24 seconds after puck drop. Colorado, which had gone nine consecutive games without scoring a third-period goal while an opponent’s goalie was in net, swiftly answered. Denis Malgin scored his first Avalanche goal since arriving via December trade.

But the mistakes caught up with Colorado. A puck that Kurtis MacDermid possessed in the defensive zone turned into a sloppy giveaway, and both MacDermid and J.T. Compher failed to clear. Vladislav Namestnikov weaseled around Georgiev with 15:50 remaining.

The Avs neutralized four Tampa power plays and led 33-24 in shots at second intermission, but Vasilevskiy was a brick wall again. Five days earlier was his first shutout of the season. This time, it took multi-player efforts to score against him.

Valeri Nichushkin supplied a textbook net-front screen 50 seconds into the game for Artturi Lehkonen to beat Vasilevskiy’s blind spot, then Bo Byram skated with magnificent patience around the offensive zone until he had a perfect backdoor passing lane. Nathan MacKinnon had an open net to make it 2-0 in the second period.

But as entertaining as the game was and as impressively as the Avalanche handled their opponent for 40 minutes, it only took one bad break for vulnerability to creep back in. An off-target J.T. Compher shot whipped around the boards to Tampa in the neutral zone, turning into an unfortunate odd-man rush and easy Nikita Kucherov finish.

“I thought we had some opportunities at 2-0 to stretch the lead out to three,” Bednar said. “We didn’t capitalize on them. Vasilevskiy makes some saves.”

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