Avs make peasants of the Knights in 7-3 thrashing

LAS VEGAS – ‘Tis the season of ugly Christmas sweater wearing and as we all know, sometimes you wear the sweat and other times that sweater wears you.

Coming into their final game before the Christmas break against the Vegas Golden Knights, the Avs were wearing a scarlet ‘L’ on their chest after taking two home losses that should have been wins after blowing consecutive third-period leads.

But the sun came up again today and the Avalanche had a productive morning skate and focused on their special teams, knowing the power play has been a sore spot in recent games.

As things played out tonight, the Avs once again found themselves with leads throughout the game, including the third period, and despite some bumps in the road, ended up wearing a worn-out Vegas team to the tune of a 7-3 beatdown in their barn.

“We felt like we had better in the third,” Avalanche captain Gabe Landeskog about the previous losses. “We talked about staying aggressive, not getting away from it like the two ones at home. Obviously, we had some luck tonight but you need that to win. Overall, I think the third was really good, sharp.”

The Avs entered that third period with a 5-2 lead, which would be smooth-sailing for some teams. After allowing three goals in three minutes against Carolina and then four goals in eight minutes against Chicago to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory, this was a test of Colorado’s resolve.

“Even the last two losses, we didn’t want to let that bug us or stop what we’ve been doing the first half of the year,” Landeskog said. “The results weren’t what we wanted but losing when you’re up, part of it is mental. Momentum is a real thing. Felt like we were strong tonight and we didn’t want to let anything bother us.”

They put those words onto the ice when Vegas scored early in the third period to draw the game to 5-3 with just over 17 minutes remaining in the game. That was plenty of time to mount a comeback and send Colorado into the break in a tailspin.

The Avs, alongside that luck Landeskog referenced, put that to bed when Mikko Rantanen scored a power play goal to make it 6-3 and restore their three-goal lead. Rantanen’s goal was a double-doinker as it bounced off two players before finding its way past Marc-Andre Fleury but sometimes that’s just life and the Avs certainly weren’t complaining.

That goal was the second of the night with the man advantage and third special teams goal of the night as Matt Nieto scored a short-handed goal in the first period to give Colorado a 2-1 lead they would not relinquish.

“We’ll take it,” Landeskog said with a broad smile when asked about the three special teams goals.

While Nieto’s goal was obviously big, both of Colorado’s goals on the power play ended significant Vegas momentum as they tried repeatedly to come back from the multi-goal deficits the Avs put them in throughout the evening.

Landeskog himself scored the first power play goal when Vegas allowed too much room on the zone entry and he just walked in and beat Fleury for his eighth goal of the season. Despite the results, the process certainly wasn’t anything to write home about as there remains significant room for improvement with the man advantage.

“It still wasn’t great,” Landeskog said. “Got a little bit of luck on [Rantanen’s] goal and mine, get some time there on the entry. You need that, too. Sometimes your power play is playing really well but you can’t seem to finish it, sometimes your power play doesn’t play that well and you get lucky. Tonight was one of those nights. We entered the zone pretty good but we weren’t able to create enough motion in zone and we need to be able to create some more movement to confuse some teams and not get stuck standing around.”

The relationship between process and results is a constant tug of war that ultimately determines the outcomes of games and sometimes it’s fair and sometimes it’s not. Tonight seemed pretty fair, however, as Colorado avoided their typical turtle tactics late in the game and outshot Vegas 13-4 in the final frame.

That’s a dominant finish to the last game before the Christmas break. The win pushed Colorado to 49 points on the season, one ahead of their full-season total just three years ago.

With the big win tonight, does that mean the disappointments of the last week are firmly in the rearview mirror?

“We like to think so,” Landeskog said. “You want to learn from experiences. That’s what good teams do, learn from losses and wins as well. That’s what we have to do.”

Tonight, that’s what Colorado did. They tore that scarlet letter off their chest and left put it in the past. Now they have three days to rest and relax before getting Cale Makar back against the hated Minnesota Wild back in Denver later this week.

And they wear the ugliest sweaters of them all.

GAME TAKEAWAYS

• One of the strangest first periods of the season in this one. Avs didn’t play particularly well, getting outshot 18-12 and generally having issues with the puck but walked out with a 3-1 lead. Goaltending and capitalizing on opportunities is a hell of a combination.
• Pierre-Edouard Bellemare was a fan favorite in Vegas and in his two games back as a member of the Avs, he scored the first goal in each game. He has six goals on the year and four are against his former club. The Curse of the Ex-Avs is well-known witchcraft but it’s neat to see it working on the other side of the equation, too. Voodoo works, y’all!
• J.T. Compher’s two-assist night moved him to 16 on the season, tying his career-high for a season. It’s an interesting stat because it just seems like Compher’s overall play has taken a noticeable step backward this year but the playmaking has been there. Obviously, the big difference so far is in his goal-scoring as he has just three (!) on the season. Even more important was that he responded to a benching in the last game against Chicago when he played just about five minutes at even strength. That puts a player on the verge of a healthy scratch and he responded with a two-point first period. That’s exactly what you’re looking for as a coach when you send that message via minutes.
• Compher now has five points on special teams this season, all assists. Two on the power play, three short-handed.
• Ian Cole scored 15 points in his 71-game debut with the Avalanche last season. His assist in the first period tonight pushed him to 16 points in just his 32nd game of the season.
• Tonight was the 10th time the Avalanche have scored at least five goals in a game this season. They are 10-0.
• Enough numbers, nerd. Pavel Francouz was once again fantastic and the case continues to build for this situation to turn into more of a platoon than Philipp Grubauer’s crease. The big difference between them recently came late in the second period. With Colorado leading 5-2 and on the power play following the failed Vegas challenge of offside on the fifth goal, Vegas got their best scoring chance of the night when Mark Stone ended up with the puck on his stick and Francouz out of position. Stone put the backhand on goal and Francouz reached back with his glove and made a brilliant desperation save. The second period finished with Colorado maintaining their three-goal lead and that is just too much mountain to climb for a team on a SEGABABA. Grubauer had a chance to make a similar save against Kirby Dach against Chicago to maintain Colorado’s one-goal lead but he failed to do so. It’s definitely a gross oversimplification of everything in play right now but sometimes a situation can be boiled down pretty quickly.
• We talked last week about the power play’s problems and the missed opportunity it had in the third period against Chicago to push the lead from 3-1 to 4-1 and what a difference that made. Tonight, after Vegas had made it 3-2, Colorado took advantage of the PP and pushed it back to 4-2 and gave them back a little breathing room. Those are just game-changing plays (brought to you by Strava Craft Coffee?) and Colorado made them tonight.
• Valeri Nichushkin had a pretty strange Gordie Howe hat trick tonight. His assist was just a puck hitting him fortuitously, he failed to throw any real punches during his fight and essentially warmed his face up for his third period goal, which was scored by bouncing right off his dome. Hilarious and well-deserved for a guy who didn’t have anything going right for him for so long now suddenly experiencing all the good fortunes he can handle.
• Nathan MacKinnon – two more points tonight. 55 points in 37 games. Ho-hum.