Mikko Rantanen goes full moose and leads Avs to comeback win over Blues

Losing streaks are the worst. Nothing goes right when you’re down bad. Food is gross, sleep is impossible to get, sunny weather doesn’t exist, you always seem to kick the doorstopper in the bathroom when you’re barely awake. The works.

The Avs have been going through exactly that on the four-game losing streak that saw them lose real ground in the Central Division and more injuries to their beaten-down roster.

Though the Avs had a spirited tilt with the New York Rangers back in Denver two nights ago, they still came out on the wrong side of things. They got to the shootout, however, so at least they got a point from it.

Points are crucial for the Avalanche right now. Every point they earn right now eases the burden of them having to go on some monumental winning streak beginning in February when they are projected to have a fully healthy roster.

Enter this afternoon’s game in St. Louis.

The Avs got Valeri Nichushkin back against the Rangers and added Artturi Lehkonen today. That’s half of their top six healthy! Relatively speaking, that feels like things are going Colorado’s way!

Their opponent, the same Blues the Avs dispatched in a heated second-round playoff series last year, is struggling even more than Colorado. The Blues entered today’s game four points behind the Avalanche despite not dealing with nearly the rash of injuries of Colorado.

No, the Blues’ biggest battle this year has been against themselves. Against aging, ineffectiveness, and downright incompetence, especially in goal. Everyone’s favorite villain, Jordan Binnington, has been pretty bad so far this year but was spectacular in St. Louis stealing two points in Denver earlier this year.

All of this said, these were two teams that cannot stand each other going into an afternoon game where both could really use the lift of beating a hated rival and hopefully using it as a springboard into larger success.

In the end, both teams will feel okay about how it all ended because another game got into overtime, lessening the blow of the losing team, which ended up being the Blues after Mikko Rantanen’s third goal of the game gave Colorado the victory just 29 seconds into overtime.

It was a pretty bland game throughout with no goals in the first period, a Rantanen goal in the second period, then a game-tying Vladimir Tarasenko goal eight minutes into the third period.

The last five minutes of the third period, however, is when all hell broke loose. Each team had legit scoring chances and then it appeared the Blues made the big mistake, taking a penalty with just over two minutes left in regulation.

Colorado’s power play, however, has gone completely lifeless since Nathan MacKinnon exited the game against the Philadelphia Flyers. That unit hasn’t scored and has struggled even entering the zone and setting up, let alone generating quality scoring chances.

That continued in the vital power play here. The Avs had the chance to put a dagger into the St. Louis comeback attempt, but instead ended up fueling it even more. A misplay with the puck by Lehkonen and Cale Makar turned into a Brandon Saad breakaway, who outraced a stumbling J.T. Compher to a loose puck in the neutral zone, and Saad beat Pavel Francouz with just 1:36 left in the game to give the Blues a 2-1 lead.

The pendulum had swung from stealing a badly-needed win against a division rival in their own barn to giving another game away in the third period. Nightmare fuel stuff.

But then the puck dropped and the game continued. Colorado continued pressing and eventually a series of small things broke their way. Devon Toews made a great play just inside the blueline to stop a bouncing puck from getting outside the zone, then Ivan Barbashev lost his helmet and had to race to the bench, giving the Avs a brief two-man advantage as they had six skaters on for the final minute.

Toews then skated into the space that opened up when Barbashev had to go to the bench and got a shot off from a tough angle. The puck hit Compher in front of the net, bounced down into the crease and Rantanen banged home the loose puck as it sat behind Binnington.

With only nine seconds left on the clock, the game has swung back to tied. Overtime would have to decide this one.

Rantanen won the faceoff, got the puck back to Makar, and Colorado’s trio (along with Nichushkin) ventured up the ice with possession. Nichushkin got the puck into the zone and dropped it to Makar. From there, Makar just threw the puck at the net, where Rantanen was crashing the crease.

Binnington stopped the initial offering, but Rantanen got the rebound on his stick and put the hat trick on the board and slammed the door shut on the Blues for the day. This comeback was Colorado’s, and boy howdy did they ever need it.

This stopped Colorado’s losing streak, kept a division rival chasing the rest of the division, and got them back to level with the Minnesota Wild for third place. This version of the Avs hanging around in the division is a problem for the rest of the teams around them. They want the Avs to sink as far as possible and have to play at a breakneck pace down the stretch to chase the division title.

Wins like today make that job a little easier. What also helps is the next five games are at home and only one of those teams is currently in a playoff spot. We’ll see if this kickstarts a run here for the Avs, but these are two points that can’t be taken away.

TAKEAWAYS

• It’s no secret Mikko Rantanen drives me crazy. He’s one of the world’s most naturally gifted players with a serious tendency to just coast through games. He loves trying to make the highlight play in lieu of simplifying the game. When it works, he creates highlight-reel-worthy plays. When it doesn’t, it usually costs his team possession. On Colorado’s first PP of the game, it was the version of Rantanen that drives me nuts. From that point forward, however, he kept things simple and his hat trick is a direct result of a meat-and-potatoes approach to the game. He didn’t overthink his first goal, just blew a puck past Binnington. Then he crashed the net and put home two loose pucks for his next two goals. He’s one of the best players in the world when he adopts this approach consistently. Since MacKinnon left the Flyers game, the Avs have only scored six goals. Rantanen has five of them. He’s certainly doing his part.
• A worthy shoutout to Pavel Francouz, who stood tall in net today and was very good. The only goals that beat him were a perfectly placed shot from Tarasenko and Saad on a breakaway. Nothing easy, nothing free. Very good response after his last start was the mess in Boston.
• The Hudon-Meyers-Foudy line was fun against the Rangers and held their own again today. They haven’t finished anything yet but they’ve created some scoring chances and have been sound defensively. This has given Jared Bednar three lines that he can comfortably play as two-thirds of the fourth line (D. Hunt and MacDonald) played under five minutes. Woof on the distribution of minutes, but good for an entire line of AHL call-ups on holding their own and making individual cases for longer looks.
• I’m filing this away as a fun fact: Rantanen with three goals, six different players with assists on them. Has to be a rare-ish thing, yeah?
• I think Colorado’s reverse retro jerseys look great on the ice, but in contrast to the extremely yellow jerseys St. Louis wore today, I thought it was an aesthetic nightmare on the ice today. Gross.