Fists, fury fly in 6-2 Avs victory over Arizona

GLENDALE, Ariz. – Saturday night was all right for fighting, at least for the Avalanche. The Avs, who had been dozing through a poor showing to that point in a game against the worst team in the NHL, woke up after a second-period melee that saw defenseman Sam Girard get cold-cocked and Nathan MacKinnon get tossed for being the third man in on a fight.

Fortunately for an Avs team that really didn’t play too well in this one, they got to play against a brutally bad Antti Raanta in the Coyotes net. The Avs came out of Gila River Arena with a 6-2 victory.

But first, about that melee: It came at the 8:52 mark of the second, and it all started when Arizona’s Zac Rinaldo – long known as one of the dirtier players in the league – hit MacKinnon with a hard but clean check at center ice. While MacKinnon doubled over in pain, Girard skated near Rinaldo, who must have thought the pint-sized Avs D-man wanted to fight with him. That was never the case, but Rinaldo gave him a good, hard punch to the face anyway, dropping Girard to the ice.

Erik Johnson immediately went after Rinaldo and proceeded to beat the tar out of him. Meanwhile, MacKinnon tried to go after Rinaldo too and was assessed a third-man-in game misconduct. MacKinnon also fought Josh Archibald after that.

When it was all sorted out, the Avs got a power play and Rinaldo got a match penalty, which is likely to get him suspended. Girard left the game for a mandatory concussion protocol but returned soon after. The Avs weren’t so lucky with another defenseman, as Tyson Barrie suffered a broken bone in his right hand after blocking a shot in the first period and didn’t return. He will be further evaluated in Denver, but it’s probably safe to say he’ll be out at least a couple of weeks.

Remember that second period a couple weeks ago at home against Tampa Bay, when the Avs surrendered four goals in a little more than four minutes? Yeah, the same thing happened this time, only the Avs did the shock-and-awe routine.

Colorado scored four goals in a span of 3:46, blowing open a game that had been going poorly for the Avs mostly to that point. After the fights between MacKinnon and Josh Archibald and Johnson against Rinaldo, the Avs played mad and made the Coyotes pay on the scoreboard.

“(Rinaldo) suckered him,” Johnson told BSN Denver. “I flew in and took care of it. You don’t want to see that. I don’t think ‘G’ is going over there, trying to fight him. He’s just going over there to give him a bump. He suckered him and I’m sure that’s something the league will look at.”

Girard said he was OK after the game.

Carl Soderberg got the scoring started at 10:20, when his soft shot from the slot beat a screened Raanta. The puck at first seemed to skim in off the shirt of Patrik Nemeth, but Soderberg still had credit for the goal at press time. A minute, six seconds later, J.T. Compher had the puck in the left circle and beat Raanta to the near post on a shot that also deflected some off Coyotes D-man Jason Demers.

Nail Yakupov got his eighth goal of the season at the 13:26 mark, and boy was it a softie allowed by Raanta. Yak just put a little backhander on net from about 10 feet, but somehow Raanta misplayed it with his pads and it slithered over the goal line. Rick Tocchet had seen enough of Raanta by that point, yanking him in favor of Scott Wedgewood.

The goals didn’t stop, though. Matt Nieto finished off some nice forechecking work by converting Blake Comeau’s pass from behind the net and just like that it was 4-0, at 14:06.

“I think the (fights) had something to do with that. Anytime your best players are sticking up for one another, it goes a long way in the locker room,” said Johnson, who returned from a two-game suspension of his own and played nearly 23 minutes. “We stepped up as a group after that. It was insane. I was in the box the whole time. After I got out, it was pretty nice to go into the third with a pretty comfortable lead.”

Soderberg and Sven Andrighetto scored third-period goals, with Andrighetto scoring right after a Derek Stepan short-handed goal that cut the lead to 4-2 and gave the small crowd on hand some life.

“Our confidence is much more than last year,” Soderberg said. “We stuck with it and I think we got some life after the penalties.

Nikita Zadorov really played a fine game for the Avs, keeping the defense stable when, at one point, there were just three available. The Avs lost Barrie, lost Girard for a while and Johnson was in the penalty box for five minutes. Zadorov played nearly 27 minutes, was a plus-3, have five shots on net, blocked three shots and was credited with three hits.

Big Z is finally – finally – starting to become a player.

“It’s nice when the coaches trust you and you can just go out and play the game,” Zadorov said. “I’m finally starting to play my game and it’s exciting to go out on the ice.”

Here’s some post-game video of the Avs coming off the ice, with Big Z looking pretty darn happy: