Mikko Rantanen hat trick powers Avalanche to win over Kings

The Colorado Avalanche are banged up and just trying to get through the early-season injury bug they knew was coming. After tonight’s 4-2 win over the visiting Los Angeles Kings, the Avs move to 9-8 on the season and are looking at potentially getting Val Nichushkin, Jonathan Drouin, and Miles Wood back for Friday night’s game against the Washington Capitals.

With all those players out, the Avalanche offense has struggled mightily to score goals at 5v5 this season. Coming into tonight’s game, they were 26th in the NHL in 5v5 goals despite Nathan MacKinnon, Mikko Rantanen, and Cale Makar all once again being in the top 15 in scoring.

A dominant power play has helped keep the goal-scoring alive and they have been trying to survive poor goaltending early on. With Alexandar Georgiev back entrenched into the starting goaltender’s net after his play stabilized, Colorado is back to leaning on its defense and the brilliance of its superstars, a familiar formula in Denver.

It looked early on like that formula might be in trouble once again when the Kings scored 32 seconds into the game en route to a great first period. Los Angeles took a 2-1 lead into intermission on the back of two Adrian Kempe goals and outshot the Avs 9-5. It was another poor first period for the Avalanche, who increased their league lead in goals given up in the first period.

From then on, however, it was all Avalanche. Colorado scored once in the second period and twice in the third period. All three goals were scored by Mikko Rantanen as he recorded his second hat trick of the season.

The Avs put the defensive clamps on Los Angeles as they allowed zero shots on goal in the second period, just the third time in franchise history they’ve accomplished that and the first against someone other than Arizona. In fact, the Avs allowed just six shots on goal in the final 42 minutes of the game.

There’s no way to put that other than flat-out defensive dominance, which is surprising after the ghastly defensive breakdown by Devon Toews and Cale Makar that led to the second Kings goal.

After that, Colorado buttoned it up. They allowed a Kevin Fiala breakaway in the second period but he hit the post. In the final 37:15 of 5v5 time, the Avs allowed five shots on goal, five scoring chances, and two high-danger chances. Those are absurdly low numbers.

Here’s the game flow so you can have an illustrated example of the defensive excellence on display by the Avalanche tonight:

And if you wanted a heat map version to see where the shots were coming from for each team, this will be good for a chuckle:

Avalanche observations

• I’m not sure who was primarily at fault on the second Kings goal but the casual approach by both Toews and Makar was disappointing to see. The real question for me was if Toews leaving the front of his net to crash on the would-be shooter while Ivan Ivan was already there, thus leaving Kempe alone on the backdoor, was Toews panicking or Ivan missing an assignment?
• Speaking of Ivan, he is facing the specter of a tough roster crunch that I wrote about yesterday if you missed it. He has been solid and reliable for most of the first 17 games of the season, but I felt tonight was his worst game. It could be just as simple as an off-night for the rookie or it could be him feeling it a bit as the Avs face hard lineup questions this weekend if they get all of the reinforcements at the same time. He was fifth in TOI among forwards, so maybe I’m being dramatic again.
• Nathan MacKinnon’s three assists put him back on top of the scoring race in the league. He is currently on pace for a 159-point season. Rantanen’s hat trick puts him tied atop the league in goals scored. Makar is in the top five of scoring despite being a defenseman. These guys have hard-carried the Avs while waiting for help.
• Artturi Lehkonen’s return has made him look like one of the league’s most crucial glue guys. Edmonton has Zach Hyman, Colorado has Lehkonen. This generation’s response to Chris Kunitz playing alongside Sidney Crosby in Pittsburgh, Lehkonen is an incredible fit next to MacKinnon and Rantanen and has looked awesome since returning. I know Drouin and MacKinnon have that special connection, but so do Lehkonen and MacKinnon (and Rantanen and MacKinnon, and Nichushkin and MacKinnon, for that matter). Getting them all into the same lineup should present fun possibilities.
• I’ve written this a few times now, but Sam Girard continues to look awesome offensively. He’s pushing play in a way we’ve never seen and his playmaking finally looks like it’s coming along the way so many of us thought possible when he was destroying the QMJHL.
• Speaking of Girard, I’ve been critical of the continued Girard-Josh Manson pairing and tonight was more of the same. Manson struggled with puck management and defense while Girard was full-send offensively. They weren’t bad, but in contrast with their success with other partners (albeit in more limited ice time), I am curious how much longer this goes on. Girard has been excellent alongside both Makar and Sam Malinski while Manson has seen much better rates of success with Toews and Calvin de Haan.
• My last note tonight: Alexandar Georgiev had an easy job overall, but that first goal is a bad goal by him. The second goal Kings goal was such a bad defensive breakdown, it would get scored even if there were two goalies in the net. This was a fine night for him but certainly wasn’t a statistical marvel.