Avalanche blow late lead in wild overtime loss to Canucks

The Colorado Avalanche got back to action tonight against the Vancouver Canucks following the fiasco that was the 6-5 loss to the Calgary Flames.

Things got off to a lightning quick start as Nathan MacKinnon found himself on a breakaway right off the hop but he continued his misery from last night by missing the net entirely.

In response to the second life, the Canucks got a breakaway of their own and sniper Brock Boeser did a better job than MacKinnon of making the goalie make a save. Unfortunately for the Avalanche, goaltender Philipp Grubauer wasn’t quite warmed up enough to get in the way and the Canucks were off to a 1-0 lead just 58 seconds into the game.

The first period unfolded without much incident following the Boeser goal as the Canucks had two power plays fail to cash in and Grubauer stopped a second Boeser breakaway to keep the Avalanche at just the one-goal deficit heading into the second period.

It didn’t take long for the Avalanche to get the jump on Vancouver in the second period when Sheldon Dries deflected home a point shot from Alexander Kerfoot to tie the game at 1:38. It was the second goal in two nights for Dries as he collected his second career goal.

The deadlock was brief as Elias Pettersson made an unbelievable play from his own blueline to fire a rocket of a pass off the backboards and Boeser won a footrace to the puck and beat Grubauer high on the glove side to make it 2-1. Grubauer had come out of his net to play the puck but couldn’t get to it in time so he was retreating when Boeser got his shot off.

Colorado rebounded quickly from the goal against when the Avs’ top line got to work as Mikko Rantanen found MacKinnon through the neutral zone. MacKinnon entered the Vancouver zone and dropped the puck for Ian Cole. Cole blasted a one-timer to tie the game at two apiece.

The fun was really just getting started in the period as Loui Eriksson beat Grubauer to make it 3-2 Canucks. The Avalanche went ham the next four minutes as MacKinnon dropped a goal on the Canucks to tie the game and Kerfoot walked through several Canucks players and beat Jacob Markstrom to give the Avalanche their first lead of the night at 4-3.

Several minutes managed to pass before more scoring took place but it wouldn’t last as Pettersson outworked Dries in front of the net and poked a puck past a sprawling Grubauer to send the game into a 4-4 tie as the game entered its final frame.

Continuing the high-scoring theme, the Avalanche broke the deadlock just 90 seconds into the third period as Nikita Zadorov found some space and whipped a wicked wrister past a helpless Markstrom to give the Avalanche a 5-4 lead.

Questionable officiating naturally played its inevitable role in this one as Matt Calvert was slashed on the hands and taken down from behind but there was no penalty called on the play. As the puck went the other direction, Cole ran his guy into the net in a pretty obvious penalty and put Vancouver on the power play.

Grubauer’s very poor night continued as he appeared to lose control of his stick and in the process of trying to pick it up opened up the net for an easy power-play goal for Markus Granlund and the game was yet again tied, this time at 5-5 with 9:58 remaining to play.

Colorado took advantage of a late Vancouver penalty and a beautiful passing play between Colorado’s top unit saw them put it home when MacKinnon beat Markstrom on a one-timer to make it 6-5 with under two minutes remaining in the game.

The lead didn’t last long as Colorado’s inability to clear their own zone led to a Pettersson goal just seconds later to tie the game at six apiece and send it into overtime.

A back and forth overtime period saw the Canucks gets a late power play and they capitalized in the final minute with a wonky goal that bounced off the post and then off Gabe Bourque and into the net for the game-winner for a 7-6 Vancouver win.