In Monday’s 4-3 shootout victory over the Boston Bruins at Ball Arena, Nathan MacKinnon recorded an assist to keep the Colorado Avalanche’s season-opening home point run going to 22 games.
In Avalanche/Quebec Nordiques history, MacKinnon is one game away from tying Joe Sakic (23) for the longest home point streak at any stage of the season.
In the shootout, Valeri Nichushkin scored the lone goal.
With seven victories in their last nine games (7-1-1) the Avalanche (26-12-3) are led by three goals each from Mikko Rantanen, Logan O’Connor, and Sam Malinski. There were 23 saves by Alexandar Georgiev.
Colorado coach Jared Bednar stated, “I thought that game had a little bit of everything, and from start to finish, that’s probably one of our most complete games.” “Just the way we handled the puck, played, and competed.” It was an excellent hockey match. I think our guys played a tremendous game. Actually, both teams.
It was an incredible hockey match. competitive, hard-fought. One of the nicest we’ve had all year is that.
Jim Montgomery, the coach of Boston, stated, “I thought we won more battles after the first period.” “I felt we were in control of the puck possession game in the offensive zone, and I thought Colorado was crushing us in the first.”Marshy was excellent this evening. He led pretty well, in my opinion. He was rather loud while warming up, emphasizing to his teammates the importance of getting to the game and outlining our tasks.
At 11:21 of the first period, Marchand gave Boston the lead 1-0 on a power play with a wrist shot that past Georgiev glove side from the top of the left circle.
Marchand declared, “We competed hard.” We were unable to obtain the second point, regrettably. had a few chances. We kind of wasted the overtime power play. Therefore, we must improve slightly in those instances where we have the chance to win games. However, we were successful in conveying the message.
At 16:13, Rantanen scored a power-play goal to level the score at one after choking on his stick, going to one knee, and deflecting a feed from MacKinnon beyond Swayman’s glove.
“I think we scored some big goals, played such good hockey offensively, and generally, we were in their zone a lot,” Georgiev remarked. That’s excellent, then. Their goaltender was keeping them in the game with some great saves. Was a good victory.
In the second session, O’Connor gave Colorado a 2-1 lead at 2:23. After a collision in their own zone between Pavel Zacha and Kevin Shattenkirk, he snatched up the puck, spun, and stick-handled down on Swayman before beating him glove side on the breakaway.
O’Connor remarked, “I was lucky enough that they kind of ran into each other a little bit.” The puck squirted out at me, and I immediately wanted to remove it from my tape. Although it was undoubtedly a hard-fought game, getting the two points is crucial given our current challenging schedule.
At 10:05, Beecher scored on the rebound of Danton Heinen’s wraparound attempt to tie the score 2-2.
Malinski scored a wrist shot from the blue line at 17:56 to give the Avalanche a 3-2 lead. On Monday morning, the American Hockey League phoned him back from Colorado.
It feels fantastic to be a part of a big win, and Malinski said, “I think it’s a little bit more special considering it’s my first game back.” “All I wanted to do was get the puck to the net.” I kind of stumbled there because the man was in my lane, but I pushed back with my forehand and just tore it down to the net. Fortunately, it entered.
At 5:46 of the third quarter, Marchand crashed the far side of the net and deflected the ball to tie the game 3-3.