"You want to bounce back as soon as you can and what better way to do it than at home." Mikko Rantanen puts Avs back in the win column

Colorado returned home to play in front of the home crowd after their three game road trip out East.

There were a lot of storylines to get them up for this game: they were shutout their last two, Riley Tufte was recalled from the Eagles with a chance to impress after a good training camp, Ivan Prosvetov made his Avalanche debut in net, important division points were on the line, and their moms were in the building ahead of the Mom’s Trip in Vegas this weekend.

As mentioned above, there were a few lineup changes. Alexander Georgiev started the last eight games and was given the night off. Coming in for the first time in an Avs uniform was goaltender Ivan Prosvetov.

Tufte was called up form the AHL and joined the Avs forward group. He had six goals and two assists in six games with the Colorado Eagles to start the year and joined Ryan Johansen and Val Nichushkin on the second line. Logan O’Connor was promoted to the third line with Miles Wood and Ross Colton. Notably, Tomas Tatar and Jonathan Drouin were scratched tonight.

Kurtis MacDermid suited up as a forward and joined Andrew Cogliano and Fredrik Olofsson on the fourth line. Realistically, O’Connor pulled spot-duty on that line with Cogliano and Olofsson more often than not.

Positively, Cale Makar and Bowen Byram were cleared to play after a scare following the Buffalo Sabres game. They missed practice on Tuesday, but joined the team for morning skate and entered the lineup business as usual. Both were key players tonight especially in the third period.

Colorado secured important points within the Central Division against the St. Louis Blues in their 4-1 victory.

The first five minutes of the first period were a little shaky, but fortunately they were shaky for St. Louis too. An early penalty prompted an excellent penalty kill from the Avs, but the thing that really shifted the momentum was a goal from Ross Colton.

He joked at morning skate about not keeping the puck in Long Island from his first goal as an Av (it was an empty-netter and the puck was shipped down the ice by an Islander).

“They all count, you know they don’t ask how, but I think I’m going to wait to keep one that actually goes off my stick for the first one.”

Colton will probably keep this one.

Great pressure in the Avs own end from Wood allowed him to send the outlet pass to Colton anticipating it in the neutral zone. He skated in on the breakaway around Tyler Tucker and wristed it glove side past Jordan Binnington.

From there, the Avs looked a bit more cohesive. A tripping penalty from Jordan Kyrou put the Avs on the powerplay. Nathan MacKinnon cycled the puck, Makar set Rantanen up at the right circle, and as he does, Rantanen dished the game-winner in.

“My parents and grandparents are here, so it’s always fun to get some family from Finland to watch the games,” said Rantanen. “If you can score and get a win, it’s the best.”

St. Louis challenged the goal based upon a possible missed call on a puck played with a high-stick from Johansen. The officials did not side with them and St. Louis went back on the kill due to the failed challenge.

Colorado came out of the first period with two important goals as insurance.

One thing missing from the opening minutes was a team-wide attack mentality. It wasn’t completely absent and it was present more of this game than it wasn’t, but there were periods of sloppiness sprinkled throughout. Most of it came inside a ten minute stretch in the second period.

In the final five minutes of the second, the Avs scrambled a lot. It was the ugliest portion of an otherwise good game.

Colorado lost a board battle in the offensive zone. Not exactly the worst fate, but they got caught on the backcheck in transition. Kasperi Kapanen made a nice seam pass to Robert Thomas. Thomas skated into the slot and beat Prosvetov to put St. Louis on the board.

During the final minute, Josh Manson took a holding penalty to give the Blues a split powerplay between periods.

With the man-advantage twice in the middle frame, St. Louis crawled ahead in the shots battle, but it was close. Colorado’s third period was their best.

The Avs killed the remainder of the penalty and set the tone for the third period early.

Rantanen made the play behind the goal line, Makar tagged it to the netfront, and Artturi Lehkonen tapped it in. They established the zone well prior to this: Makar had a strong entry and they retrieved Lehkonen’s first shot attempt of that shift.

Lehkonen wasn’t to blame on the Thomas goal in the second period, but he blew a tire and crashed hard into the Blues’ net rendering him unable to help with their backcheck efforts, so his goal was a nice redemptive moment.

They don’t typically lose the five-on-five possession battle, but the Avs lost a step in the second period. Their response in the third period was loud. They attacked more on the rush and sustained more consistent pressure.

“We were forechecking a little bit better, we were working harder getting pucks back,” said Rantanen. “We were kind of lazy on the last two games we lost on the road trip so that was (something) we talked about yesterday to get the forecheck because that’s our strength.”

MacKinnon crashed into the Blues’ zone. A heavy forecheck from Lehkonen forced Brayden Schenn off the puck. MacKinnon retrieved it in the slot and faked Binnington on the shot. Instead, MacKinnon set Byram up to one-time it in.

That was enough to seal this one. Colorado got back on track with their 4-1 win and can take off for their Vegas road trip tomorrow on a high note.

“There’s a lot of pride in that room, you hate to lose and (to) lose a couple the way we did. Not taking anything away from our opponents, but a lot of it was on us.”

Bednar said the group wanted to make corrections and put their best foot forward in front of the home crowd.

“The crowd was outstanding tonight. Right from the get go, the building was buzzing.”

Rantanen corroborated the importance of playing well in front of the home crowd and not allowing losses to stack atop one another.

“You want to break the losing streak, obviously you don’t want to get a streak at all, but sometimes it happens. It’s a long season, but you want to bounce back as soon as you can and what better way to do it than at home,” he said. “We want to establish the home advantage here and try to use it moving forward.”

Additionally, Prosvetov earned his first win in an Avs uniform. He made 27 of 28 saves and endured the ugly hockey in the second period in stride.

“He kept us in the game with the lead in the second,” Rantanen said of Prosvetov. “We gave up a lot of good chances for their shooters and he looked like he was the best player on the ice today. It’s really good to see and I’m happy for him.”

Bednar said Prosvetov was solid. “He made all the saves he was supposed to make and then some,” he affirmed. “I thought he was excellent.”

The Avs will practice once more at home before jetting off to Vegas. No doubt, it must come as a relief to break the goal scoring drought and get back in the win column.