It’s too early in the season to identify the Colorado Avalanche’s 2013-14 nemesis, but …

On second thought, maybe it isn’t. And given the bitter comments from the coaches — Colorado’s Patrick Roy and St. Louis’ Ken Hitchcock — after the Blues’ 4-1 victory Wednesday night in the Pepsi Center, there might be even more to it than that.

The loss snapped the Avalanche’s latest winning streak at three, and all the scoring came in the first period until Chris Stewart added an empty-netter for the Blues with 1:44 left.

Couple that with a 7-3 rout of Colorado in St. Louis two weeks ago, and it means that the Blues have the Avalanche’s early-season number. The loss dropped the Avalanche to 17-6, and left them five points behind the 18-3-3 Blues in the Central Division.

In the wake of the rough game in St. Louis two weeks ago, punctuated by Stewart’s post-scrap showboating after his skirmish with Colorado defenseman Cory Sarich, it was notable that there weren’t any fights in this one. But there was some skirmishing at the final buzzer, and Roy was angry afterward. The backstory was that after Roy’s histrionics at the end of Colorado’s opening-night victory over Anaheim, Hitchcock — like Roy, once a very successful major junior coach — labeled Roy’s actions “junior hockey. It’s got no place in our game. You can’t be pushing barriers down.”

Roy’s post-game news conference was unremarkable until he praised winger Patrick Bordeleau, the Avalanche enforcer who scored the only goal against the Blues, and used that as a jumping-off point to add: “You know what, I was very mad at the end because I have been jabbed by different coaches around the league, especially Hitchcock when he said that was junior stuff, talking to players, talking to the referees. But I saw a guy on the other side who was talking to players and then was also talking to the referee and got the referee (mad).

“Seems to me that there’s different rules for everybody in this league. I guess the old guys are allowed to do whatever they want and I guess us, because we are younger, we are not allowed to say anything. I am a little (mad) about that.”

Did Roy say anything directly back to Hitchcock?

“I can’t say that here, I’m sorry,” said Roy.

Outside the visiting locker room, when Hitchcock was told of the gist of Roy’s comments, the St. Louis coach responded: “Oh, give me a break. Tell Patrick to shut the (bleep) up.” Then he asked if Roy had really said that, and repeated his suggestion.

Other than that…

The Avalanche played against the Blues without center Paul Stastny, who didn’t skate in the warm-up and was scratched because of back spasms. Matt Duchene had been considered a game-time decision after missing three games with an oblique injury, and he acknowledged after that he wouldn’t have played if Stastny had been able to go.

“I was going to take two more days and when Paulie went down, it was one of those situations where I needed to step in and I felt good enough to do so,” Duchene said. “From that point, it wasn’t precautionary any more and we just went with it. I’m thankful to get out of that game without anything more in terms of being hurt, I feel great, and I’m looking forward to playing on the weekend.”

Said Roy: “Matt was about 95 percent and when he saw that Paul was not capable of playing, he said, ‘I’m gonna go.’ Obviously, I would have liked to see Matt have a full practice before playing tonight, his first game back, but unfortunately, things like this happen, and you have no choice.”

Duchene logged 18 minutes of ice time and had three shots on goal, skating much of the game on a line with P.A. Parenteau and Jamie McGinn. That left Nathan MacKinnon to again center Ryan O’Reilly and Gabe Landeskog. Roy tried shaking things up late, but to no avail.

Colorado has done a remarkable job of getting out to early leads and came into the night outscoring the opposition 20-9 in the first period this season. That’s what made the Avalanche’s horrible opening 20 minutes against the Blues especially surprising, and St. Louis jumped out to a 2-0 lead and was up 3-1 at the intermission.

It got that way because, among other things, the Avalanche turned the puck over and was cavalier in its own end, Semyon Varlamov didn’t have a larcenous night in the net, and Colorado couldn’t mount much pressure on Blues goalie Jaroslav Halak, who finished with 25 saves.

David Backes redirected a pass past Varlamov to open the scoring for the Blues only 2:46 into the game, and then Alexander Steen was left unattended in front and scored a power-play goal that made it 2-0 at 6:10.

Colorado’s fourth line provided much of the energy, especially in the first period, and Bordeleau scored — with Brad Malone essentially making the play — at 8:24 to make it 2-1. But then former Colorado College star Jaden Schwartz got the back-breaking short-handed goal for the Blues, putting them up 3-1.

Colorado next has a back-to-back matchup with the Minnesota Wild — Friday at St. Paul and Saturday at the Pepsi Center. That’s old school, but the teams will not ride Amtrak each way.

Given that the teams are tied in points and it’s entirely possible they’ll be fighting for the third and final guaranteed playoff spot out of the Central Division, the games are at least potentially significant in the long run. But the Blues-Avalanche matchup is getting more interesting.

Terry Frei: tfrei@denverpost.com

Avs Recap

THE POST’S THREE STARS

1. David Backes. Blues captain had a goal and an assist.

2. Alexander Steen. Had the second goal and played a strong game for the Blues.

3. Alex Pietrangelo. With fellow “D” Jay Bouwmeester taking two minors, Pietrangelo’s work was crucial on the penalty kill.

WHAT YOU MIGHT HAVE MISSED

There were no fights, but the fireworks came after the game in the comments from Avs coach Patrick Roy and the reply from Blues coach Ken Hitchcock.

UP NEXT

At Minnesota, 4 p.m. Friday

Terry Frei, The Denver Post