In their second straight loss on the road, the New York Rangers were guilty of some lackadaisical play that came back to bite them.

The high-powered Colorado Avalanche took advantage of sloppy turnovers and poor coverage to win 6-3 over the Rangers on Thursday night. It was their third consecutive defeat.

In a game that they actually scored three times, including twice on the power play, the Blueshirts made too many mistakes that wound up in the back of their net. The result was predictable against a dangerous opponent with the league’s best record. The Avalanche have only lost once in regulation over their first 20 games (14-1-5).

In fact, the Avalanche became the fourth team in NHL history to start their first 20 games with one regulation loss or fewer. They joined the 1927-28 Montreal Canadiens (15-1-4), 1979-80 Philadelphia Flyers (16-1-3), and the 2012-13 Chicago Blackhawks (17-0-3).

Sometimes, you have to give credit to your opponent. To put it mildly, the Rangers aren’t in the Avalanche’s league. Few teams are. Colorado is probably the fastest and most skilled team in the NHL. Their transition is lightning quick. On at least two goals, the Rangers were exposed.

Artemi Panarin was responsible for both. He’s a great offensive player, but he isn’t known for his defense. A couple of his lapses led directly to the first two Colorado goals.

With the Rangers having a good first period buoyed by an early J.T. Miller power-play goal on a set play that was set up by Mika Zibanejad and Adam Fox, Panarin threw the puck away into the middle of the ice. That turnover led directly to Nathan MacKinnon tying the game when he beat Vincent Trocheck to a rebound of a Martin Necas shot with 27 seconds remaining.

Despite getting outplayed for most of the second period, the Rangers surged ahead thanks to Adam Edstrom. On a nice play in transition, he tipped in a Sam Carrick feed for his first of the season. After being a healthy scratch in Vegas, it was a good response from Edstrom, who admitted that he hadn’t been playing well prior to last night’s game.

For a while, Igor Shesterkin kept the Avalanche off the scoreboard. Despite a territorial edge in play, they still trailed by a goal late in the period. That soon changed due to another Panarin blunder.

On a good defensive play by Devon Toews to stop Trocheck, he started another Avalanche quick counter up to MacKinnon. The Avalanche superstar gained the Rangers zone before dropping a pass for Martin Necas, who then hit a cutting Cale Makar. After easily beating Panarin to the net, Makar came around and beat Shesterkin on a wrap-around that tied the score with 2:45 remaining.

Makar was too fast for a diving Adam Fox, who tried to stop him. Panarin wasn’t the only spectator on the goal. Miller also got caught puck watching. That’s two instances where he didn’t try to prevent what happened.

Facing a faster team, the Rangers lost their discipline. They took six penalties to keep putting the Avalanche on the power play. Dating back to the first period, they took five straight penalties. Even though they entered the game ranked 23rd on the man-advantage, the Avs eventually made the Rangers pay for their transgressions.

In the opening minute of the third, Will Cuylle took down Artturi Lehkonen. That put the Avalanche on their fourth power play.

This time, the Rangers got caught on a shorthanded bid. After Sam Carrick was stopped by Scott Wedgewood, the Avalanche goalie wisely pushed the puck up to Sam Malinski. With both Carrick and Mika Zibanejad trapped deep, Malinski moved the puck up for Brock Nelson. On a three-on-two rush, he took it himself and fired a shot past Shesterkin to make it 3-2.

It didn’t matter that both Fox and Vladislav Gavrikov were back. Nelson had too much room to pick his spot, going high glove on Shesterkin.

After killing off a Carson Soucy holding minor, it was the Rangers’ turn to go on the power play. With Jack Drury off for taking down Braden Schneider, Miller got his second power-play goal of the game.

Following a near miss at the front, Trocheck won another offensive draw. That allowed Zibanejad to pass the puck up top for a Fox point shot that Miller got a piece of to tie the game at three with 9:42 left.

But before you could even relax, the Avalanche struck back at warp speed thanks to the combination of Makar and MacKinnon. After Necas gained the zone, he dropped a pass for a Makar one-timer that hit the goalpost and bounced right to MacKinnon, who easily put the rebound in to make it 4-3 only 30 seconds later.

On the play, Schneider got caught watching the Makar blast. He was too slow to react to MacKinnon, who snuck behind him for his 16th goal and league-leading 36th  point. He leads Connor McDavid by four points, with super sophomore Macklin Celebrini five behind. There isn’t a better player in the league right now than MacKinnon. He’s that dominant.

The same can be echoed for Makar. He finished off the Rangers by taking away an errant Zibanejad pass and firing the puck down into a vacated net. It happened so quickly that Shesterkin hadn’t even gotten to the bench. The smoke was coming through him when he skated back to his net.

Ross Colton added another empty netter for the final margin.

Following the loss, NY Post beat writer Mollie Walker asked Rangers coach Mike Sullivan a direct question about Panarin’s defensive miscues. Here was his response:

“I’ve had a lot of conversations with Artemi throughout the course of the season. We don’t expect him to be the best defensive player out there, but everyone’s required to play defense – and that’s the conversation that we have. Everybody’s got to be committed to play defense to a certain level or it’s going to be hard for us to win consistently. And those are the conversations that I’ve had with him is just recognizing when those situations are when you’ve got to lock down…Everybody knows he drives offense, he’s a talented player. But I think he’s also capable of defending when he’s committed.”

The most frustrating part is that we’ve seen previous coaches call out Panarin for his lack of attention to the defensive zone. This isn’t a new thing with him. He remains the Rangers’ best offensive player. However, he’s reverted back to how he played before. Whether it’s forcing passes into the middle or blowing an assignment, he isn’t doing enough to help defensively.

Panarin was held off the score sheet. If he’s not producing, it’ll continue to be hard for the Rangers to win games.

Sullivan’s experiment of having Miller play with Trocheck and Panarin didn’t go well. They were each on for four Avalanche goals, including the two empty netters.

I don’t love the idea of playing Miller on the wing. He’s a center. It can cause some confusion with defensive assignments. Zibanejad did better when shifted over to the right side with Miller last season.

Until they feel that Gabe Perreault is fully ready for a top six role, the Rangers will continue to have an incomplete lineup where Sullivan has to make tweaks.

The Rangers wrap up the road trip at the Utah Mammoth tomorrow.