Well. That was certainly something.
The Colorado Avalanche followed up their frustrating, bad-bounce-laden loss to the Toronto Maple Leafs last night by blowing out the Ottawa Senators on the road to give themselves a chance for a winning road trip on Saturday night in Montreal.
Truth be told, this game started off slowly for the Avs as they looked a little emotionally hungover from last night’s frustrations and the Sens jumped all over them early. When that stopped, the Avalanche blew Ottawa’s doors off with a four-goal explosion in the first period.
Ottawa didn’t come out with a strong push really the rest of the night and the Avs cruised to a comfortable 5-1 win. Let’s talk about one of Colorado’s more complete wins of the season.
Brock Nelson makes his mark for the Avalanche
It’s funny that at the start of the season, everyone always overreacts to the first ten games of the season because it’s the only data points we have on the year and then we look back and realize the silly things we made too much of as the team was adjusting. That same process then plays out with additions at the trade deadline.
Because Brock Nelson only snuck out two assists in his first six games as an Av, there was talk about the astronomical price paid to acquire him as a massive overpayment and not worth the investment. Honestly, it still might be but that will be determined in the playoffs, not the last 19 games of the regular season.
Anyway, Nelson got his first two goals as an Av with goals two and five for Colorado. The first was a shot off the rush and the second was a wonderful deflection from a pass by Artturi Lehkonen.
This version of Nelson, whose power and speed led directly into his goal-scoring ability, is what the Avs wanted to see when they gave the New York Islanders a healthy chunk of their future to add him to their lineup and keep him out of Winnipeg.
Nelson’s big game highlighted a huge night of balance for the Avs, who got contributions from just about everywhere. Speaking of which…
Avalanche lineup balance is the dream
This is what the Avs wanted and it’s precisely what has other teams worried about this reworked Avalanche squad. Nelson’s addition was already a problem, but the addition of Charlie Coyle meant the Avalanche suddenly had enviable center depth with Nathan MacKinnon, Nelson, Coyle, and Jack Drury slotting into the fourth-line center role.
We saw it all play out the way the Avs want. MacKinnon got things started with the first goal tonight, giving him a 5v5 point so I can stop talking about it all the time (maybe). Then Nelson scored. Colorado’s power play went to work later in the first period with Cale Makar finding the back of the net as his pursuit of a 30-goal season continues making strides. Coyle’s line got the next one from a won faceoff when Joel Kiviranta’s hilariously unlikely chase for a 20-goal season got a little more serious with his 16th of the season.
It was 4-0 at the end of the first period and Colorado’s top three lines had goals at 5v5 and the top power-play unit also added one. Nelson’s power-play goal gave the second unit a goal, too. All that was missing was a goal from the fourth line but former Ottawa Senator Parker Kelly came close on a 2v1 in the third period.
Defensively, Colorado locked down the Senators and never allowed a serious push for any kind of comeback. The only goal surrendered by Colorado came late in the third period on the penalty kill (Keaton Middleton’s penchant for penalties is a problem, but I’m not nitpicking a 5-1 win).
All told, 11 of Colorado’s 18 skaters and 9 of 12 forwards put points on the board. Only Makar and Sam Malinski recorded points from the back end with Makar finishing with two and Malinski getting an assist on Nelson’s first goal.
This was a thorough domination of a decent Ottawa team and it wasn’t because of a brilliant performance where MacKinnon and Makar did all of the heavy lifting. It was because skaters 1-18 brought the lumber and laid the wood. Even when the Avs had built such a substantial lead, they didn’t allow Ottawa to do much in the way of stat-padding to make it look better than it was.
The Avs kept them to four shots on goal in periods two and three as the Sens managed just 16 all night. All four lines were on the positive side of shot metrics. Then there was this guy…
Scott Wedgewood shines again
Look, there’s no goalie controversy in Colorado because Mackenzie Blackwood has continued to be great, but Scott Wedgewood is at least giving us plenty of reason to feel confident with both goaltenders in net.
Wedgewood stopped 15 of 16 shots tonight and was only minutes from his third shutout as an Av but has to settle for it being his eighth game with a save percentage over .900 in 15 games. In those 15 games, he’s only allowed more than two goals five times, giving the Avs plenty of opportunity to win each time out.
Tonight, he was probably flat-out bored. Not only did Ottawa not generate much quantity, the quality of chances was poor, too. This was one of those games where the Avs asked their goaltender to simply not screw it up and make it unnecessarily interesting.
Wedgewood succeeded in doing just that. It wasn’t sexy, although he had one cool glove save that was goalie sass personified, but mostly this was a cozy night in net.
That’s it. Easy win. On to Montreal, where the Avs will try to get to finish their three-game road trip with a second victory.
