Avs usurp knighthood in destruction of Vegas

You know sometimes you go into matchmaking with a group of friends and you get into a game where the opposing team is a bunch of randos who have never played together before?

That was kind of the video game equivalent of the Avalanche annihilating Vegas today. The 6-1 Avalanche win comes on Nevada Day, a holiday nobody outside of Nevada seems to understand much (is there a Colorado Day? If so, why don’t we celebrate it?).

It also comes two years after the Avs lost 7-0 on Nevada Day and set the tone for a dominant Vegas start to the Avs and Golden Knights head-t0-head matchup.

The win also comes several days after the Avs lost their first regulation game of the season when they got outworked, outhustled, and outmatched in a 3-1 loss to St. Louis.

That loss also marked the loss of Mikko Rantanen, who has a lower-body injury and is listed as week-to-week.

And this is how the Avalanche responded. With a straight-up pub stomp of a Golden Knights team that entered the day second in the Pacific division.

Things got started right away when Pierre-Edouard Bellemare scored an unassisted goal just 28 seconds into the game.

Colorado dominated the first period in pretty much every way imaginable except on the scoreboard and a William Karlsson goal tied the game and seemed destined to give Colorado a fate worse than they deserved.

Nazem Kadri wasn’t having any of that, however, as he found the back of the net from distance with 47 seconds left in the period to give the Avalanche a 2-1 lead and downhill momentum heading into the first intermission.

That momentum carried over as Colorado blew the doors off Vegas in period two, racking up three goals and ending the second frame leading 5-1 on the scoreboard and 34-15 in shots on goal.

Everyone got in on the act as Cale Makar got the first regular-season goal of his NHL career, Kadri notched his second of the day, and Matt Calvert and that pesky fourth line struck again. Calvert got another in the third period when he banked a puck off Sparks and into the Vegas net for Colorado’s first short-handed goal of the season.

It’s hard not to say this was a statement win from the Avalanche. Coming off a loss against a division rival in which they got beat up in every facet of the game and losing their second-best player AND going against one of the expected top teams out west this year in a building they had never won a real game in before…there was plenty of reason to wonder how today would go.

Colorado’s response to that situation has to be nothing short of concerning for everyone in the Central division. Every year a team or two has crazy hot starts they don’t continue. But for Colorado to start hot against the particularly difficult schedule they had in front of them and to go 4-1-1 on their six-game road trip?

That is how you put the NHL on notice.

GAME TAKEAWAYS

• Let’s start with the top line for Colorado. With J.T. Compher replacing Rantanen, they still scored at even strength. They also scored on the power play. Not a bad first game.
• Nathan MacKinnon finished with two assists, giving him a 10-game point streak to start the regular season. That had never been done by an Avalanche player before. MacKinnon’s assault on the Colorado record books is very much underway.
• We haven’t made a lot of it so far but Makar has continued a great statistical start. Today, we saw all the elements of his game that make him such a fun young player. The skating was on point, he was aggressive offensively and had an attacking mentality throughout. He hit the post not long before finally scoring that goal.
• Makar passed Andre Burakovsky today and is third (!!) on the Avalanche in scoring with nine points (1g, 8a) in 10 games. He is also now tied for the rookie scoring lead with Victor Olofsson.
• Philipp Grubauer didn’t have to be exceptional today but he came up big when needed and, once again, posted a clean sheet in the third period. In his eight starts this year, he has given up just one goal in the third period so far.
• The fourth line from Colorado continues to be downright special. Matt Nieto (who had an assist tonight) has five points, Bellemare has six, and Calvert has seven. Consider that last year’s fourth line guys (Bourque, Dries, Kamenev, Greer, Agozzino) combined for 23 points in 144 games played. The current group has 18 points in 30 combined games. Even if you add in Sven Andrighetto’s 17 points in 64 games (and I didn’t because most of his scoring was done on lines higher than the fourth), it drives home just how effective this trio has been for Colorado so far. It’s unsustainable for sure (all of them are on 40-point or better paces) but they’ve been magnificent so far.
• In a reminder that sports can be cruel, Valeri Nichushkin and Andre Burakovsky each finished -1 in a 6-1 win.
• Final total from today: COL 40 SOG, VGK 26 SOG. A beatdown.