Avs drop a Duchene on Preds to end losing streak

Entering tonight’s game against the Nashville Predators, the Avalanche had absolutely nothing going for them.

Injuries to 25% of their forward corps and, as of today, their starting goaltender, had found a home in Colorado’s dressing room. They had lost five straight games, essentially giving back the gains they made with their league-leading hot start.

And they were playing a team with the perfect combination of traditional Avs killers and former Avs players to extract maximum value from the curse of the ex-Avs.

Naturally, none of that mattered as the Avs dropped nine goals on Nashville and won 9-4 running away as the Pepsi Center crowd sweetly chanted “We want ten!”

The blowout was triggered by none other than former Avs forward Matt Duchene, who scored to make it 3-2 in favor of the Preds in the second period.

The lead lasted one shift.

Joonas Donskoi put home a rebound and scored the first of his three goals on the night as his hat trick paced an Avalanche offense that exploded for six goals in the second period.

“I don’t think so,” Donskoi said when asked if he had ever been part of a period like that. “That’s one of the best that I can remember.”

Colorado set a franchise record as they scored those six goals in just 8:00, burying the Preds alongside their losing streak.

“Everything was going our way,” Donskoi said. “We were pretty good in the first two, we just got a couple unfortunate goals against. I don’t know. We were able to find the back of the net tonight, that’s for sure.”

How much did the Avalanche need a win like this?

“A lot,” Donskoi said while sighing heavily. “It’s hard when you get into that losing streak. You start thinking about the games too much, sleeping bad, getting nervous before the games, stuff like that. I think the locker room has been handling it pretty well. We have a lot of guys with a lot of experience. It’s a long season so sometimes it happens. We just have to find a way to have fun again on the ice and get the work boots on.”

When Duchene scored to draw the boos of a restless and frustrated home crowd, Colorado could have gotten in their own head and packed it in. That they didn’t says plenty about the guys in that locker room.

“No, that’s what I’m proud of,” Donskoi said. “It shows the character of this team. That would have been easy. We had a couple losses before so it would have been easy to hang our head like ‘here we go again’ but we handled it really well. We just kept going. We knew we were on top of them at the start of the first period and even the second. They got a couple of fortunate goals but we were able to keep going and take the game.”

In a game you win 9-4 and outshoot the opponent 45-24, you don’t normally spend the postgame talking about character but it was a theme in Colorado’s room tonight.

Despite the good feelings from the dominant win, the Avs realize one night is just that and they have to get back to work with Columbus coming to town Saturday.

“It shows the character. We needed this win a lot, get back to winning habits and maybe things will loosen up a little bit. There’s a lot of good things we did tonight and we have to keep doing them going forward.”

GAME TAKEAWAYS

• Hard to find much to say about that game that isn’t glowingly positive. And that’s exactly what this group needed.
• One area that felt a little shaky was Pavel Francouz in net, who gave up a very weak goal to Filip Forsberg early in the second period that tied the game at two. The other goals you can make arguments for improved support around him but four goals on 24 shots is still not totally what you’re looking for. Luckily, a mediocre goaltending effort didn’t matter in this one but no doubt Francouz will look to improve while he remains in Philipp Grubauer’s (day to day) spot.
• Tonight was statspalooza as more Avs recorded multi-point nights than failed to record any points at all. Eight Avs had at least two points and five had at least three while just five failed to record any points.
• One of the players with points was T.J. Tynan, who got an assist on Donskoi’s third goal. It was the first of his NHL career in his fourth career game.
• One of the players without points was Valeri Nichushkin, whose goalless streak now sits at 85 games. He continues to have chances but no answer for NHL goaltending.
• Cale Makar’s three-point night was well-earned as he was dominant offensively. He scored in the first minute of the game to get the ball rolling on running Pekka Rinne and now sits at 15 points through 16 games. He is the rookie scoring leader by four points. He did limp off at the end of the game but there was no update on him postgame. Given Colorado’s injury luck, it is something to keep an eye on tomorrow at practice.
• Nathan MacKinnon also failed to finish the game. After putting up four points (1g, 3 a) on 10 shots on goal (15 attempts total) in just two periods, the Avs sat him in the third for “precautionary” reasons.
• Nikita Zadorov took a puck to the face in the second period and was clearly hurt. Nashville’s trainer even briefly jumped on the ice expecting a stoppage of play but the refs decided against it because the Preds controlled the puck. Zadorov eventually got up and was the player who cleared the puck. He then disappeared down the tunnel and was not seen again. There was no postgame update on his status.
• My last Avs note on a night where I could about almost every player at some length is about Vlad Kamenev. He made a very nice play up the wall to Burakovsky that resulted in another highlight snipe by Burakovsky (who enjoyed a three-point night himself) and even threw a couple of hits in this one, including one on Arvidsson that came around the Colorado net (and arguably a touch late). That gives Kamenev points in two straight games and his play has really ticked upward recently. I’ve said a million times the last few years that if they get a real NHLer out of Kamenev, it’s a huge win for Colorado. He just needs to keep it going.
• This was the first time in Nashville history they have given up nine goals in a game.
• Tonight’s game came just two days after the two-year anniversary of the Duchene deal. From that trade, four players (Duchene, Kyle Turris, Sam Girard, Kamenev) played tonight.