"It shows a lot in terms of how deep guys can dig." Tomas Tatar, Mikko Rantanen, and Avs' PP breakout from their struggles

Colorado needed to dig deep tonight to ensure their losses didn’t begin to stack up. 

The Calgary Flames have had struggles of their own this season and sit in the middle of the Pacific Division. After a pretty mixed homestand, the Flames hoped to snag a win on the road to start things off on the right foot. Both teams had a lot to gain, and the Avs emerged from the rubble in their 6-5 third period comeback win.

The Avs had a pretty strong lineup, but they lost the services of Joel Kivivranta on the fourth line due to illness. Ben Meyers received the recall from Loveland, and Fredrik Olofsson returned to round out the Avs PK.

Bednar returned to some familiar lines: the Miles Wood, Ross Colton, and Logan O’Connor line was reunited and Val Nichushkin started on the top line with Nathan MacKinnon and Mikko Rantanen.

The Avs did some good things in the first – some of their demons crept in, but they didn’t lose the period.

Colton set the tone with a big hit on Chris Tanev on the opening shift. The Flames took issue with it and Colton successfully baited them into a minor penalty.

The Avs received two powerplay chances in the opening frame, and both showed improvement, but especially on their second opportunity. They had twelve attempts, four shots on net – three of which were high-danger. Bednar didn’t give the second unit much time and let the top unit get to to work.

The Avs limited their turnovers compared to the Flyers game, but they still gave the puck away more than the Flames.

One of the turnovers cost them. Rantanen and Nichushkin tried to settle a puck in the neutral zone and Rantanen accidentally batted the puck ahead to Blake Coleman. They were right at the defensive blue line, so the Flames entered quickly. Coleman found Nazem Kadri alone at the top of the slot, and Kadri did what we saw him do so many times before.

Down a goal, the Avs drew their second penalty and built momentum off the powerplay that sustained them even after it finished.

A unique blend of Colton, Tomas Tatar, Bowen Byram, Josh Manson, and Fredrik Olofsson were on the ice, and they were just the guys the Avs needed.

Olofsson and Colton rotated the puck behind the net dodging two Flames skaters. After a little bit of a battle and good puck protection, Colton eventually set up and made an impossible pass to Tatar at the front of the crease. Tatar sent it to the top corner and scored his first goal in an Avalanche uniform.

The team swarmed him in joyous celebration – Colton appeared to “take the monkey off his back,” before hugging Tatar.

The Avs characteristically controlled possession and won the shots battle.

But it didn’t persist into the second period. Calgary climbed ahead in the shots 15-8.

In the opening minute, the Flames took another penalty and the Avs snapped their powerplay drought. They were scoreless through the last sixteen opportunities.

“I felt like we were crisp,” said Makar. “Everybody’s moving the puck well. When [MacKinnon] and [Rantanen] are finding their seams, I think we’re pretty unsolvable. It’s fun to watch them.”

Colorado cycled the puck, MacKinnon made the cross-slot pass to Rantanen, and Rantanen fed Cale Makar for the one-timer. MacKinnon extended his point streak to twelve games – the longest active streak in the NHL currently.

A few minutes later, Johansen was slow to his assignment and Andrew Mangiapane was left alone in the slot. Kadri set him up with the pass from behind the goal line, and Mangiapane one-timed it in.

The Avs had another decent powerplay, but took their first penalty of the game shortly after.

They were much more disciplined, however, than the Flames who took five total penalties.

At 13:21, Blake Coleman beat Alexandar Georgiev clean. The Flames set up in transition and Makar and Byram defended against Mikael Backlund and Coleman. Backlund passed to Coleman on entry, and Coleman wristed it far-side.

A minute later, Sam Malinski used his speed to carry the puck deep into the Flames’ end. He whiffed his first shot attempt and recovered to get the puck to Andrew Cogliano behind the net.

Cogliano found Meyers at the bottom of the right-circle, and Meyers wristed it past Dan Vladar’s blocker. It was his sixth-ever NHL goal. Bednar said he earned himself another game.

At 16:13, MacKinnon won the defensive zone faceoff, but Calgary assumed control. MacKenzie Weegar sent a shot toward the net, and Connor Zary batted the rebound in.

Calgary clearly got in Georgiev’s head a bit. After a whistle, Mangiapane tried to poke the puck in, and Georgiev lost his cool and shoved Kadri. Kadri and Georgiev were assessed matching minors due to the fallout of that altercation.

On the subsequent four-on-four, the Flames moved the puck on the perimeter. Noah Hanifin made a deceptive pass to Yegor Sharangovich planted at the side of the net. Sharangovich got inside Makar and redirected the pass right in.

In a matter of minutes, the tie game became a two goal deficit.

Colorado was competitive in the second period, but they were baited into the emotion of the game just enough.

Bednar swapped out Georgiev for Ivan Prosvetov in the third period.

They strung together some good shifts. Unsurprisingly, the engine of the third line never quit. They kept pushing to extend possession and an opportunistic play from Miles Wood pokechecked the puck away in the neutral zone to reset and re-enter.

Byram set Manson up at the point and Manson fired a slapshot. His stick broke in the process so the puck took a weird path to the net, but it landed on Colton’s doorstep for him to bang it in.

With a little less than half the period left, the Avs had to act fast.

A couple minutes after, Byram dropped the puck back upon entry and Makar danced to get inside the right-circle and let a shot off. It went through some traffic and hit Nichushkin and then Rantanen at the netfront to go in.

Rantanen was credited with the goal and officially ended his goal drought. Rantanen went nine games without a goal and three games without a point.

He snapped it all tonight with an impressive three point outing. Rantanen finished with nineteen shot attempts and eight chances on net.

After Ismo Lehkonen, Artturi Lehkonen’s father, weighed in on Rantanen’s off-season training yesterday in relation to his struggles as of late, Rantanen had some choice words for him postgame.

“There’s actually one thing where I got a lot of extra energy (from),” said Rantanen. “One of our Finnish NHL players’ dad was talking shit about me in the media – that I didn’t train last summer like I used to, and he was making things up. So, I think that was for him. If you talk shit, it’s going to come back at you.”

Rantanen evidently channeled the criticisms into something productive.

“I thought he was a horse tonight,” said Bednar.

At 15:30, Rantanen cleared the puck up the boards to Nichushkin waiting at the offensive blue line. Nichushkin tagged MacKinnon and he skated down the slot all alone and wristed the puck past Vladar.

Three unanswered goals, and Colorado regained the lead after losing it in the second period.

Their third period was dominant.

Makar said that the team stuck to their identity. After acknowledging errors he made that he felt put them behind, he said that the team discussed patience in between periods.

“We can’t go out there and score every shift and everybody knows that. (Colton made) an incredible play down low to get to [Tatar] in the first, (and) we just needed to grind them down.”

“It shows a lot in terms of how deep guys can dig, especially going into the third,” he added. 

“You look at a guy like [Tatar] and [Rantanen] – huge goals for us tonight. For [Tatar] that was his first of the season – that was awesome. We showed glimpses of it throughout the year. We struggle to show a full-60 at times, but to have that resilience especially going into the third period: two goals down knowing that it’s going to be a grind, everybody’s staying committed to that grind and not just trying to score every shift (and it) shows a lot of growth.”

It wasn’t pretty, but they clawed their way back in the third period in a special, Avs hockey sort of way.

They have one more game in their homestand against the Buffalo Sabres on Wednesday. Can the Avs start to stack together wins and prove that tonight was more than a feel-good, slump-busting victory?