Avalanche find urgency late in comeback win over Detroit

It’s all about the long game. In their season-long question to have their cake and eat it, too, the Avalanche pulled off the double dip perfectly. With the Ottawa Senators sneaking a point against the New York Islanders tonight, the Sens moved to within just three points of the Detroit Red Wings for last place in the NHL.

With the Avalanche owning Ottawa’s pick, it was obviously paramount the Avalanche gets the game to overtime, negating the point the Sens gained, and then winning in the process to keep pace in a playoff race that’s started to heat up recently.

Right?

Anybody?

No? Okay. Fine. Maybe Colorado didn’t do it on purpose (they most definitely did not) but it’s hard to complain about the end results in this one. After watching Detroit take three separate one-goal leads, the Avs finally put an end to the silliness 2:29 into overtime when Nathan MacKinnon beat former teammate Jonathan Bernier high on the glove side. When asked what he saw coming down the ice, Gabriel Landeskog chimed in on behalf of MacKinnon and said “He saw high glove” before MacKinnon could respond, causing a round of laughter.

“Honestly I was just going with my instincts,” MacKinnon ultimately said. “I didn’t even really look at much. I saw the scouting report said high glove was a common place to score a goal on Bernie. I just shot it. I wasn’t aiming for the post or anything, it just found the right spot. It kind of went by his ear so it was in an awkward spot to put his hand. It’s exciting we can finally win one in OT.”

The goal capped a two-point night from MacKinnon as he also notched an assist on the game-tying goal from Tyson Barrie at 18:25 of the third period. Barrie’s goal came just 42 seconds after Detroit had taken a 3-2 on a Filip Zadina power-play goal (the first of his career). Detroit was on the man advantage after a too-many-men penalty was called on the Avalanche at 16:18.

“That too many men penalty was pretty crazy,” MacKinnon said. “I don’t even know what happened but we answered really quickly. [Barrie] was due and he got one low block. I felt like power play was solid tonight again. Breakouts were a little tough but we had some good chances and we’re improving.”

Colorado’s own power play scored a goal in the third period when Mikko Rantanen, who had a three-point night himself, backhanded the puck past Bernier to tie the game at 2-2 earlier in the third before the scoring bonanza broke out late.

With Minnesota losing in overtime to Nashville and Dallas shutting out the Rangers at home, Colorado’s win served to keep pace with their division rivals while also moving ahead of Arizona, who now sits one point back of the Avs. Colorado now sits three points behind Dallas and two behind Minnesota. The Avs play at Dallas on Thursday night in a crucial game that will be huge in determining who emerges from this playoff sprint down the stretch.

“It’s life or death the last 15 games,” MacKinnon said. “We’re one point out depending on what happened in the Minny game…two points out. I don’t even know anymore. There’s so many teams that are tight. We’ve just got to win our own games and we play the teams we need to beat and we’ll make the playoffs.”

There are still 15 games left for both Colorado and Ottawa. Plenty of time left for all that cake.

More takeaways from the game

• This was one of those games that really makes me wonder if I know anything at all about hockey sometimes. I felt like the first line was pressing too hard and was almost a little too desperate to make something happen and it was hurting them. Then they broke through for a bundle of points late and all had great nights on the stat sheet.
• I really disliked Colorado’s defense tonight. Barrie finished with two points so ultimately he did what he primarily gets paid for (points from the blue line) but I really didn’t like the rest of the group tonight. For every good thing I saw from Girard, there was a mistake to match, usually on the same shift.
• It was huge for the Avs to get some offense from Barrie. He’s such a high-usage player that he needs to be producing consistently and with five points in his last 18 games coming in, he hasn’t been lately. It would be big to get a strong final 15 games from Barrie.
• J.T Compher started the game like a man possessed, flying around all over the place through the first two periods. I really lost track of him after that but his goal was a thing of beauty and I loved the energy he was bringing when some of his teammates were struggling to do the same.
• I’m really tired of opening this can of worms because their impact is so minimal most nights but the fourth line was a real mess tonight. I have to go back to watch the full play but Andrighetto sure looked like the guy got trailing the play by quite a lot on Detroit’s early goal in the third period. Zadorov, Cole, and Jost all rotated and marked their guys but the extra pass found Danny DeKeyser wide open for an easy goal and Andrighetto was the man lagging behind. Without watching the replay I won’t confidently pin it solely on him but live it looked pretty bad for him. The whole fourth line really struggled again.
• I know Adrian tweeted out something about Colin Wilson and his two goals in however many games but he picked up another assist tonight and that gives him four points in his last seven games. It’s not mind-boggling production but there’s a reason he’s in the lineup. He might not be second-line material anymore (he’s definitely not) but he finds ways to contribute here and there.
• Holy smokes that Zadina kid can play a little. I’ve generally been pretty underwhelmed by Detroit’s overall youth movement and am not a big fan of most of the kids they’ve brought in but Zadina is a player. He led Detroit with five shots on goal and he just blew a one-timer past Semyon Varlamov late in the third period. Nex to Dylan Larkin, this is the kid Red Wings fans should be most excited about moving forward. In an alternate universe where Ottawa gave Colorado the fourth pick last year, he might have ended up an Av. It’s too bad we can’t check in on that part of the multiverse just for funsies.