J.T. Compher's hat trick came at the perfect time

No Nathan MacKinnon, no problem, apparently.

With the Avalanche coming into tonight’s game with everything from being the third seed to possibly clinching the President’s Trophy on the line, no MacKinnon was looming over everything.

How would Colorado do without the driver of its offensive engine?

Uh, well, just fine as it turns out as the Avs won 6-0 in a howler.

The Avs dominated the first period, at one point having more goals (3) than the Los Angeles Kings did shots on goal (2).

The Avs didn’t give up their first shot until there was just over one minute left in the period, though the Kings did have a couple of scoring chances along the way.

Not that it mattered because Colorado put three pucks behind Cal Petersen to take a lot of the drama out of the evening.

It was a big game for depth guys to break some slumps as Joonas Donskoi scored in the first period, his first goal since March 31 when he recorded a hat trick. P.E. Bellemare also broke a lengthy goalless drought in the first period.

The real star of the night, however, was J.T. Compher. Fresh off his game-winning goal in Vegas two nights ago, Compher recorded the first hat trick of his career as he scored goals three, four, and six for the Avalanche.

It’s been a very tough year for Compher as he came into the game with just 15 points on the season but he now has four goals in his last two games. He’s one of Colorado’s most interesting depth guys because of the versatile role he fills in Colorado’s forward corps.

With the outcome pretty well decided by the halfway point of the game, the eyes wandered to the scoreboard to see how Colorado’s West Division foes were faring.

With St. Louis smashing Minnesota, the Avs clinched home-ice advantage in the first round as they are guaranteed to finish first or second now. Out in San Jose, the outcome of the Sharks-Golden Knights game meant the Avs could either finish off the President’s Trophy chase tonight or have something to play for tomorrow.

Similarly to how the Blues beat up the Wild and the Avs trashed the Kings, Vegas came out guns blazing and dispatched the Sharks with ease in a 6-0 blowout. Both Colorado and Vegas winning means the Avalanche have to beat the Kings tomorrow night.

Doing so will clinch first place in the division and the league, ensuring home-ice advantage for the entire postseason for the Avalanche.

As the Avs built their lead, the story of the game was not just Compher’s hat trick but Philipp Grubauer’s ability to play both tonight and tomorrow. Given the lead, there was much speculation if head coach Jared Bednar would pull Grubauer at any point and let him sneak in some extra rest with the Avs leading by six goals after two periods.

Grubauer didn’t leave the net, however, and posted the seventh shutout of the season, extending his career-high and tying Semyon Varlamov for most in the league. I doubt Bednar was considering Grubauer’s case for the Vezina Trophy when deciding not to pull him but the additional shutout did bolster his case some.

In what has been classic Avalanche fashion this year, Grubauer didn’t have to work particularly hard for the shutout as he faced just 18 shots from the Kings. In Grubauer’s six other shutouts, the most shots he had to stop were 31 and 26, so the lighter workload shutout has kind of been his thing this year.

Anyway, this one’s done and all it did was kick the can to tomorrow. The Avs can achieve two of their preseason goals with a win tomorrow night.

TAKEAWAYS

• Dropping six goals on a team with no Nathan MacKinnon? That’s the kind of performance that makes teams nervous. That Tyson Jost centers the first line and Colorado scores six times. Context is very important here, of course. The Kings have been eliminated for a while and have had very little to play for. Tonight, they looked like they never got off the charter plane. That’s good stuff. I’m just appreciating an impressive all-around effort as they outshot the Kings 37-18 without their top player.
• Mikko Rantanen’s three assists pulled him within one point of MacKinnon on the season. I always feel like he gets a touch overlooked because of the bright stars of MacKinnon and Cale Makar but seeing Rantanen dominate in a game without MacKinnon has been very encouraging. His longest streak without a point this year is just three games, which happened back at the end of January and early February. He has two more points than Sidney Crosby this season. Guy is great.
• How huge is this for Compher? He’s had one of the most frustrating years of any of the Avalanche players. Colorado’s depth has either been on fire or non-existent on the scoresheet and he’s been a big part of that. Getting three goals is nice but adding that to the game-winning goal against Vegas two nights ago? That’s the stuff that should bring him into the postseason with his confidence sky-high.
• His production gets overlooked because of Makar and Sam Girard, but Devon Toews broke the 30-point threshold tonight with a two-assist night. That puts all three of those guys in the top-25 of scorers among defensemen. Toews has also been exceptional defensively this year next to both Makar and Girard and it’s still shocking the Avs plucked him for just two second-round picks. Highway robbery. Holy smokes.
• About Girard. He added an assist in this game but he really transforms Colorado’s defense. It’s really about all three of those guys being in there together. Their ability to interchangeably play together in all situations, including both special team units, is a massive difference between this year’s Avalanche defense and the squad that lost to Dallas in round two. The three of them are so dynamic with the puck and so skilled defensively to boot that Colorado sacrifices nothing on either end when they toss any of them out there. This is also part of what makes the little leap we’ve seen from Conor Timmins so important. If he keeps it up, the Avs have players on all three pairings who are capable of effective and aggressive play with the puck and not just putting together two grenade launchers and hoping not to get blown up. That unit is so good.
• Bednar announced postgame it will be Jonas Johansson in net tomorrow. With the Kings expected to start Troy Grosenick, the President’s Trophy and home-ice advantage in a possible Colorado-Vegas matchup comes down to an epic duel of Johansson-Grosenick. Life comes at you fast, eh?
• The Avs are 15-0-1 in their last 16 home games. Pretty pretty pretty good.