Devon Toews puts an exclamation point on Avs' electric comeback win

Wow. Just…wow.

Truth be told, I hated the first 40 minutes of this game. It had nothing to do with the score, it was just ugly hockey. The last 20+ minutes, however, were among the most electric we’ve seen this season. That is at least if you’re a member of the Colorado Avalanche and its fan base. For the Toronto Maple Leafs, they probably would’ve preferred to stop the count after the first period.

The Avs trailed 3-0 with just over five minutes left in the opening frame, before storming back over the next two periods to win the game in spectacular fashion. 

This game was a roller coaster. So let’s dive into the “bad” for the Avs first.

The Toronto Maple Leafs decided before the game that they were going to seal the wall, at their offensive blue line, and just clog the middle in their own end, and the Avs just didn’t have an answer for the first half of this game.

The Avs were struggling to get pucks out of their end, and couldn’t get anything through in the attacking zone, while simultaneously failing to commit to strong team defense in front of Darcy Kuemper, and eventually, Pavel Francouz, who came in in relief after the Avs gave up three goals on eight shots.

It was hard to pin any of those three on Kuemper though. Pretty much everyone who was made available to the media from the Avs agreed, he played well, but head coach Jared Bednar made a great in-game decision, and it sparked his team.

The first period actually started the way everyone had hoped. The first five minutes was fast-paced, wide-open hockey that saw goaltenders on both ends have to make big-time saves. It looked like we were in for one of those top-tier classics for 60 minutes.

Suddenly however, the Avs seemingly fell asleep at the wheel a bit. It all started with a broken play that lead to a Toronto 2-on-1. Well, it was really more of a 2-on-1.5, as the Avs had Erik Johnson coming on the backcheck to try and give support.

Problem was, once he got to a place on the ice where he could make a difference, he immediately abandoned it to try and make a heroic dive to break up the pass, when really all he ended up doing was leaving Maple Leaf forward and former Av Alexander Kerfoot all by himself in front of the net.

That one, for whatever reason, really seemed to sting. The Avs really started playing on their heels and had no answer for Toronto. The Avalanche couldn’t clear pucks, their passing was a mess, any o-zone time they did get, they couldn’t get any pucks through.

The lone bright spot was Nathan MacKinnon scoring his fifth of the season, and extending his point streak to 13 games.

After getting beat down 8-3 the last time these teams played, you expected better from Colorado. 

“I had plenty to say after the first,” Bednar said after the game when I asked him about what the locker room looked like in between the first and second frame.

The team knew what they needed to do, but they just weren’t playing heavy enough and weren’t executing in the way we know they’re capable of.

The second period just kind of… happened. The Avs definitely played better, but it was still just kind of sloppy to my eye. You could tell they were trending in the right direction, but you just didn’t quite believe that they had a comeback in them.

The teams swapped goals, first, it was Nick Ritchie for Toronto, then who else but Cale Makar for the Avs. So the game never really felt out of reach. Maple Leafs goaltender Jack Campbell was standing on his head, so I guess you could say that made the task feel maybe a bit taller than it actually was, but even still, you could talk yourself into a comeback, but to say it again, it just didn’t have that feel.

Then the third period started. You could tell immediately that the team that emerged from the Avs dressing room was different than the one who had played the previous 40 minutes. They were buzzing, and so was the crowd. With every passing shift, you could feel the energy and the momentum building.

The one moment where you said, “maybe it’s just not their night” came when, amidst a flurry of Avalanche chances and pressure, Jack Campbell made a diving glove save that, to this moment, I have no idea how he came up with it. A Save of the Year candidate for sure.

But right after that, Avalanche captain Gabe Landeskog battled in front of the net and got a puck to creep ever so slightly across the goal line, and the building exploded. 

For Toronto, a team that has had its fair share of epic collapses in the last few seasons, you could see the seed of doubt creeping in and it opened the door for a fantastic finish.

Less than two minutes after the captain pulled the Avs within one, Mikko Rantanen made an absolutely bananas no-look, behind the back pass to set up J.T. Compher who was all alone in front of the net for an easy tuck.

That is the loudest I had heard the building this year. At least, that *was* the loudest I had heard it… to that point, he says, with a smirk.

The game being tied with less than 10 minutes to go seemed to wake the Leafs up a bit, as the teams traded chances until the clock hit 0:00, and we were headed to overtime.

Overtime hasn’t been friendly to the Avs in recent years, but you thought maybe they could build on Cale Makar’s highlight reel OT winner from earlier in the week and find some magic again.

Real quick, and totally unrelated, have I mentioned how good Devon Toews is? 

After a couple good looks from the Avs, and some possession-trading, it was Toews who set up a b-e-a-u-t-i-f-u-l give and go play with Nazem Kadri, and eventually the Avs’ stud defenseman ripped it home through Campbell’s five-hole to cap off the comeback. 

THAT was the loudest I’ve heard Ball Arena this year.

What could’ve been a real kick-in-the-pants type game that would’ve ended the extended stretch of really good play for the Avalanche, instead becomes one of the best nights of the season for them as they found yet ANOTHER way to win a hockey game.

 If you have anyone who’s on the fence about watching hockey, show them that third period, and they’ll be clamoring for more. What a fun night in Denver.