Avalanche close Global Series with dominant victory over Columbus

Amazing what a little European vacation and a couple of games against one of the NHL’s worst teams can do for some confidence, eh?

Following yesterday’s 6-3 victory, the Colorado Avalanche came back out in Game 2 of the NHL’s Global Series in Finland with a significantly more dominant effort in a 5-1 victory that somehow wasn’t even as close as the score suggests (which is still not close).

Just a week ago, the Avs were sitting at the bottom of the NHL in 5v5 scoring. Their offense had been stuck in the mud, they were getting zero contributions from forwards beyond their top line, and the defense wasn’t living up to its promise of being a two-way monster.

Fast forward to right now, with the Avs finishing their 11th game of the season and most of the league with games to play tonight, some of that has really changed.

The most important change here is the team’s ability to score at 5v5. With just 9 goals for and 8 against last week, the Avs were the worst-scoring team in the format but their eight goals against were the best in the league. More than anything, they were just very low-event overall.

As of this writing, the Avs have jumped from 32 to 23rd in the league with 19 5v5 goals. They’ve now given up 13, which is still the best mark in the league (Dallas is second with 16 against).

That depth scoring problem?

Artturi Lehkonen, who hadn’t scored a goal since opening night versus Chicago, got on the board just 33 seconds into the game to give the Avs an early 1-0 lead. In fact, it was their fastest goal to start a game this season (their previous was yesterday’s game when Logan O’Connor scored just 1:36 into the game) and the fourth time they’ve scored in the first minute of a period this season. Fun facts can be fun!

While Columbus would tie the game later and the first period ended in a 1-1 tie, it was the Avalanche who would emerge from the dressing room and assert their dominance in every way, led by depth players.

Martin Kaut got his first goal of the season to regain Colorado’s advantage at 2-1, then Logan O’Connor and Devon Toews added tallies in the next four minutes to push the Avs ahead 4-1. It was LOC’s third goal and the first for Toews. Alex Newhook added his second of the year to give him a three-game point streak and the Avs the 5-1 lead that would become the game’s final score.

That defense that struggled to produce offense while locking it down defensively?

The defensemen chipped in five points today (Cale Makar had three, Toews the other two) after contributing six yesterday. Today, however, they protected the house in a way we haven’t seen much this year. They allowed 32 shots on goal but allowed only 15 scoring chances (Colorado had 36) and just five high-danger chances (compared to Colorado’s 18).

In a game where each team had just one power play, it was a contest that was to be determined by 5v5 play. Given yesterday’s penalty parade and combined 12 power plays, this was certainly a welcome change.

In fact, Columbus scored their only goal on the power play on a similar tip-in play as their power-play goal yesterday. That’s all good and well, but Alexandar Georgiev locked it down the rest of the way and watched the team in front of him play their best, most complete game of the season.

This was, simply put, a dominant effort from the Avalanche and could serve as a get-right game in a lot of ways.

There was maybe no better example of that than Kaut, who had been struggling to earn the coaching staff’s trust and get any kind of meaningful minutes. He played just over nine minutes yesterday, then ended up scoring the game-winning goal today and adding an assist on Newhook’s goal to give him a multi-point game. He ended up with 14:11 in ice time and made his best case to date to be given an expanded role when the team returns to Denver next week.

The Avs finish their opening month of chaos that saw them play eight of their first 11 games as part of back-to-backs and just three true home games in that same span. They smoked Columbus with more injuries than ever as Valeri Nichushkin missed both games and then Bowen Byram missed today’s game with a lower-body injury.

They took advantage of a bad Columbus team that is in transition as they develop a lot of young players in the NHL at the same time, but that’s exactly what the Avs didn’t do last year as the Blue Jackets were just one of two teams the Avs failed to beat during the regular season.

The Avs came into Finland a disappointing 4-4-1 fresh off blowing a three-goal lead to the New York Islanders. They leave a significantly more confident 6-4-1 with a challenging schedule ahead but get to enjoy a little home cooking as they have their next three games at Ball Arena.