Avs sneak by Coyotes in shootout to extend home winning streak to 13

Well, the Avs won again.

Their home winning streak is now up to 13 after they won a more-exciting-than-expected shootout contest against the Arizona Coyotes to cap off a 4-3 win that had a little of everything in it.

Special teams played a major role as Colorado’s atrocious penalty kill finally stepped up as the Avs killed off two minutes of a five-on-three and added another kill at the end of regulation that carried over to the beginning of overtime.

On the flip side, the Avs went 0-for-5 on the power play and gave up a shorthanded goal, the first of Clayton Keller’s NHL career.

In the middle of all that, the Avs built a two-goal lead, watched it turn into a 3-2 deficit, and then tied the game up at three just a minute after the Coyotes had stunned the home crowd and taken the lead.

That roller coaster of emotions was buoyed by pure statistical and territorial dominance from the Avalanche. In all situations, the Avs tore apart Arizona with the following advantages:

• 85-41 shot attempts
• 47-26 shots on goal
• 35-13 scoring chances
• 16-7 high-danger chances

That’s a recipe for a shellacking, but Arizona goaltender Ivan Prosvetov was spectacular in his just fifth NHL appearance as he recorded 44 saves and even stopped two of three shots in overtime to boot.

Counterpart Pavel Francouz was also spectacular in overtime and the shootout and no pucks got by him in that timeframe but there was certainly a save or two left on the ice during regulation by the Avalanche netminder.

Nazem Kadri provided the difference in this game as he scored the lone shootout goal as the sixth of six shooters. While the All-Star hopeful (go vote for him as the Last Man In!) didn’t finish with any points, he had another outstanding game during regulation and was robbed of points when linemates couldn’t quite finish off the play.

Overall, you can’t help but be disappointed about the Avs needing a shootout to get past the Coyotes. In the last two weeks, the Avs have needed a combination of third-period comebacks, overtime, and now a shootout just to beat Chicago, Seattle, and now Arizona. Those are three of the worst teams that have pushed the Avs to the brink of losing.

Now, the Avs lost exactly zero of those games and the points they gave away to Chicago and Arizona aren’t going to matter much to Colorado in the long run, but that their play continues to dictate them being in close games against weaker teams isn’t something you necessarily love.

What makes you feel a little better is the Avs had a similar run last season where they outplayed the opposition but struggled to score and dropped a couple of winnable games. The Avs aren’t really struggling to score this time around, but they aren’t outplaying the other team(s) to the level they did last season.

Tonight, however, it wasn’t even so much as a hot goaltender standing on his head. It was the Avs simply making life a little too easy on Prosvetov. The screens weren’t there, the passes off the pads weren’t there, the chaotic scrambles in front weren’t there. Taking Prosvetov’s eyes away and making him track pucks through traffic were all elements missing from Colorado’s one-and-done offensive approach tonight.

The man advantage was too reliant on an individual making an exceptional shot instead of abusing the extra space on the ice to create the high-danger scoring chance. It was, simply put, a little too casual of a night for the Avs players.

Colorado put plenty of rubber on net, it just didn’t go their way as Prosvetov was able to get to and gobble plenty of it up.

Where you’re encouraged is the Avs found a way, something that has become the theme of their play since returning from the COVID Christmas break. Colorado is 6-0-1 in that time and has trailed in all seven games. There’s a grittiness required to complete comebacks like that, but there’s also an element of complacency to constantly be trailing like that.

The end result is the Avs are guaranteed no worse than a 50-50 split in the home-and-series against the Coyotes. They head to Arizona tomorrow to try to complete the sweep with another chance to take over the Central Division lead outright.

We’ll see if the Avs can finally get out in front of a team and stay there or if they need to keep making things dramatic.