Avalanche season ends in blowout loss

It took some late-game heroics from unlikely places to even get the Colorado Avalanche to Game 6 of their first-round playoff series against the Nashville Predators. After a dominant opening two periods from Nashville, Colorado would again need to dig deep and finding something special to keep the unlikeliest of seasons going.

For the first time, they couldn’t find another level.

A team on its third goaltender and without its top defenseman going up against the NHL’s best team in the regular season simply ran out of gas as the beast across from them seemed to awaken. Nashville won Game 6, 5-0 in front of a crowd that still gave their team a standing ovation when the horn sounded.

The Predators jumped out on top of Colorado early, pushing a 6-2 shot advantage and scoring the game’s first goal. It was waved off due to obvious goaltender interference and despite Nashville challenging, the call on the ice was upheld and the Predators lost their timeout. It was basically the only thing Colorado would win today.

Following the review, Nashville won the faceoff, came into Colorado’s zone and Mattias Ekholm found himself with the puck and an ocean of space. He took advantage of it and walked in and blasted a shot past Andrew Hammond, whose unexpected heroics got them through a tight Game Five and back to Denver.

The 1-0 lead for Nashville was temporary as Austin Watson, Nashville’s leading scorer entering the game, banged home a rebound into an empty net just three minutes later to give the Predators a two-goal lead and put them on the road to round two.

Despite Colorado’s porous defense through the first, it was still just a two-goal deficit for a Colorado team that had responded time and time to adversity.

That trend did not continue this afternoon as the Avalanche fell even deeper into a hole when Filip Forsberg fired a puck with eyes that found it’s way through Hammond’s body and made it 3-0 just 38 seconds into the second period.

That goal seemed to serve as the dagger as Colorado never mounted much of a push and things just kept getting worse for them when Nick Bonino fired a weak shot that somehow got past Hammond to make it 4-0 and turn this one into a rout.

Colorado actually got on the board late in the second period but it was called off for goaltender interference. Colorado challenged the call on the ice but Nikita Zadorov’s goal was ultimately not counted. Even when Colorado did something right, it was wrong. That’s just how today was for the Avalanche.

Down four, Colorado entered the third period and it was obvious they simply didn’t have the jump from previous games. This was a battered young team playing above its weight class and they finally succumbed to the relentless pressure of the Predators.

Public enemy number one in Colorado during this series, P.K. Subban, poured some salt in the wound when he sprang Viktor Arvidsson for a breakaway early in the third period. Arvidsson, who had been a virtual non-factor throughout the series, beat Hammond to make it 5-0.

The two teams would skate through a mostly harmless third period after that and Colorado’s unexpected and thrilling season came to an end at the sound of the final buzzer.

NOTES AND QUOTES

The Predators posted a shutout victory in a series-deciding game for the first time in
franchise history, joining the Vegas Golden Knight and the Winnipeg Jets as the third
team to accomplish the feat this postseason. (via NHL PR).
The Avalanche is now 25-21 in all-time playoff series, 19-12 since moving to Denver.
Colorado is 18-21 all-time in playoff elimination games, including a 10-12 mark since
the franchise relocated.
Nikita Zadorov had a postseason career-high nine hits, tied for second among NHL
defensemen in a single game during the first round of the playoffs.
Patrik Nemeth had a game-high 27:40 of time on ice, also a career high for the regular
and postseason.
Nick Bonino registered three points (1g, 2a) for the first career three-point playoff game
of his NHL career. (via NHL PR)

Colorado LW Gabriel Landeskog
On Tonight’s Game: “I mean they were good, no doubt, and they came out strong.
[There were] just a couple bounces, a couple bad decisions and we weren’t as sharp
as we needed to be. We got in a hole 2-0 right after five minutes or whatever that was.
They are too good of a team to let you back into the game. It’s not the way we want to
finish, that’s for sure. Nonetheless, I am proud of this group.”
On The Series Against Nashville: “That’s not the way you want to finish, no doubt. I
don’t know, it’s tough to sum up the series right here, right now but I felt like we made
them fight for it. I don’t know if they thought they were just going to roll over us, but
proud of the group that we have in this dressing room, no doubt.”

Colorado C Nathan MacKinnon
On Takeaways From Making The Playoffs: “A lot of positives for sure. Definitely a lot of
people didn’t see us in this position coming into the season. You know, everybody
thought we weren’t going to make it, thought we’d be the odd-team out in the west.
Obviously, it’s nice to prove people wrong and have a good young team going
forward.”
On The Avs’ Season: “[It was a] good bounce-back year. I mean, it’s a cool story that
we went [from] last to playoffs, but we’re trying to win a Cup and obviously it’s
disappointing that we showed up like this and lost 5-0 in an elimination game.
Obviously, like I said, there’s some positives. We have a young team going forward. I
thought we showed a lot of fight this season, a lot of adversity that we overcame.
Hopefully we can use some of that next season.”

Colorado RW Mikko Rantanen
On Takeaways From Making The Playoffs: “I think it’s a big experience for a lot of guys.
We had a lot of guys who were first year in the league and it was only my second year,
so [I’m] still learning some things, especially postseason. I think next year our ultimate
goal is to get in playoffs again and it’s going to be easier for everybody because there
was a lot of guys, including myself too, who played first [playoff] games, so it’s good
it’s over now and we know what to do but there’s no excuses. We lost [the series] 4-2
and that’s the hockey game.”
On The Avs’ Fans: “It’s really fun to see those fans going and supporting us even
though we had a tough game. They were still there and cheering for us, so it’s fun to
see and I have to thank them for everything.”

Nashville RW Austin Watson
On Tonight’s Win: “It’s hard to not sit back a little bit but I think overall from the start of
the game until the finish of it we had a really strong effort, and that’s really good for us
going forward, to be able to take the last game of this series and carry that into how we
want to play in the next one.”
On His Line’s Performance: “I think we just played hard, we are dogging the puck, we
are getting on the forecheck. This time of year, sometimes they are pretty, Filip
(Nashville LW Filip Forsberg) seems to do a nice job of finding one of those every once
in a while, but we did a good job of just getting into the offensive zone, controlling the
play a little bit and being hard to play against. Especially for that top line, what an
unbelievable line that is and for us to go against them I think we had to be on our toes
at all times and I think that led to some of the offensive goals.”

Nashville C Nick Bonino
On Playing Against Colorado: “I don’t think seed mattered much here, that’s a really
good hockey team over there, really young, bright future there. They work hard, they’re
fast, they have good pieces and we had our hands full for the whole thing, you could
see that.”
On The Takeaway From The Series: “It’s great to have confidence. Obviously when you
win a series you are feeling good but the way we did it, 60 minutes pretty much, we
stayed out of the penalty box, that’s huge for us. That power play is so deadly over
there. So we are going to be as confident as we can going against Winnipeg but we
know how good they are too, and we will have maybe a couple days here and the