Avalanche melt under third period pressure in 4-1 loss to Vegas

As their competition enjoys devouring the icing from their cupcakes schedules, the Colorado Avalanche have been busy hacking their way through a schedule littered with playoff teams. Tonight was no different as they completed the second half of a home-and-home with the Pacific Division-leading Vegas Golden Knights. After their 2-1 shootout victory over Vegas on Saturday, Monday night was a second opportunity for the Golden Knights to clinch a playoff berth by way of a victory over the Avalanche.

In the early going, it didn’t appear much had changed from Saturday’s matinee melee as the teams jumped out at a great pace and limited whistles while trading chances. The Avalanche had the better of the opportunities early but Marc-Andre Fleury continued his stellar performance from Saturday in the first period, shutting down all 13 Colorado shots on goal.

Not to be outdone, Semyon Varlamov also upped his game to match his opponent. While his six saves weren’t even half the workload of his counterpart, Varlamov snuck in a handful of great ones to ensure his team was not facing any early-game deficits and the teams walked into the first intermission deadlocked at zero.

That deadlock would not last, however, as the second period got underway and the Avalanche committed an egregious mental error with a bad line change putting six guys on the ice. The Knights would capitalize on the man-advantage in just eight seconds as a puck hit Erik Johnson in the back and landed conveniently on the stick of Alex Tuch, who banged it home past Varlamov for the 1-0 lead.

The Avalanche would continue to press and outplay Vegas and the piled-up chances finally turned into paydirt when Blake Comeau took a Super Mario superstar and powered his way to the net. His shot was initially stopped but turned into a pass off the pads when Johnson scooped up the rebound and beat Fleury, who was still sliding across, to tie the game. Vegas immediately challenged the play for goaltender interference and Comeau appeared to interfere with Fleury ever so slightly as he was trying to get across but there was enough of an argument to be made that Comeau was pushed into the netminder the goal ultimately stood and the game was tied.

The joy of tying a game they were controlling didn’t last very long as on the immediate faceoff after the goal, Tyson Jost’s stick was lifted into the face of Pierre-Edouard Bellemare. The infraction put the Avalanche on a four-minute penalty kill and wouldn’t you know it, it burned them as Jonathan Marchessault continued his torrid season by beating Varlamov for the second time in two games and putting Vegas back on top. The 2-1 score would hold through the horn for the second intermission.

Despite thoroughly outplaying Vegas at even strength through two periods, Colorado’s frustration had clearly mounted and by the start of the third period it looked like a team that had given up on itself. Vegas was able to generate non-stop pressure and broke in on Varlamov with odd-man rush after odd-man rush before finally delivering the dagger in the form of a Shea Theodore wrist shot that beat Varlamov high on the glove side to make it 3-1 and essentially crush Colorado’s comeback spirit.

The goal wasn’t the end as William Karlsson has a sky-high shooting percentage to maintain and what better way to get a 40th goal on the season than by easily depositing a goal into an empty net with 15 seconds remaining? The goal pushed the game to its final score of 4-1 and dropped Colorado’s hold on a playoff spot to extremely tenuous. Los Angeles was able to dispatch a Calgary team that was not playing any of its actual NHL players after being eliminated from the postseason race and the Kings moved ahead of Colorado, who now only lead St. Louis by just one point with the Blues now possessing a game in hand.