Avalanche hold off Senators to win fifth consecutive game

Casey Mittelstadt stays hot with another multi-point effort.

The Colorado Avalanche defeated the Ottawa Senators by a final score of 5-4 in a late offensive explosion. The game was pretty tight for the majority of the contest until things opened up in a big way in the final frame. The win marks Colorado’s fifth consecutive win after an 0-4-0 start to the season.

The Senators, who have been in a handful of dogfights already in this young season, know how to score goals. I expected a high-scoring affair, but it didn’t look anything like I thought it would. Let’s get into it!

First Period

The game got off to a timid start. Shots on goal were hard to come by, and despite a of power play to each side throughout, neither team was able to get on the scoreboard with their opportunity however.

The Avalanche would open the scoring, or so they thought with a Nathan MacKinnon backhander, which left Sens goaltender Anton Forsberg furious in his crease. It was determined that a falling Mikko Rantanen crashing the crease caused enough contact with Forsberg, negating the goal.

In the dying moments of the period, Casey Mittelstadt collected the puck in the right circle. He maneuvered his way down below the goal line, before feeding Nikolai Kovalenko his first NHL goal with seven seconds to go in the frame. It was a huge goal for the Avs, after a hard-fought period.

Second Period

For the most part, this was a very bland period of hockey. There weren’t many high-danger chances of note, and the Avs were overall very sloppy with the puck.

The only activity of note until the latter portion of the period came in the form of Anton Forsberg’s skate. He had an issue with the blade, which resulted in him needing an extended stoppage to try and fix the issue.

This irked the Avs faithful in Ball Arena, who saw it as Ottawa sneaking a timeout in after an extended stay in the Ottawa zone from Colorado. After some time, Linus Ullmark came into the game, and Forsberg went into the hallway to get his skate repaired.

Moments after play resumed, Senators defenseman Travis Hamonic had a scary moment, taking an elbow to the face that had him down in some significant distress. In that time, Ullmark disappeared back to the bench, and Forsberg took the reigns back over, for about a minute before going back in for a tune-up.

Play would resume, and the Avs would continue to play sloppy hockey. It wasn’t terrible, but the execution was off enough to be noticeably off to the usual standard we hold this team accustomed to, and it nearly bit them.

Justus Annunen bailed the Avs out on a 2-on-1 chance led by Sens captain Brady Tkachuk and Tim Stutzle, robbing Stutzle with the glove on a point-blank one-time blast. This is the kind of big save the Avs were looking for in the opening week of the season, and Annunen has continued to deliver solid results in the crease.

Once again in the dying seconds of the period, the Avalanche struck again. This time it was Josh Manson, who cruised his way into the middle of the Sens offensive zone where he fired a backhander that found a hole and trickled past Forsberg. It wasn’t a pretty goal by any means, but it doubled up the Avs lead heading into the final frame to 2-0.

Third Period

Despite somewhat of a slow start to the third period, the Avs continued to play a bit sloppy with the lead, and at the midway point of the period, it finally bit them. After some extended puck possession time from the Sens's top guns, a Tyler Kleven wrister that whistled wide of the Avs cage bounced perfectly to the stick of Tkachuk, who had an open net to shoot on with Annunen out of position from the Kleven shot. The Sens once again had life.

Only a couple of minutes later, Ottawa struck again, tying the game on a Nick Cousins rebound goal. Cousins found the loose puck on a point blast from Stutzle and slid the puck past Annunen.

Suddenly momentum was on Ottawa’s side, and Colorado needed a pushback.

The Avs found an answer about two minutes later when Casey Mittelstadt dished out his third primary assist of the night to Logan O’Connor, who fired home his first goal of the season. Mittelstadt has a case for being Colorado’s best player in the month of October. In a depleted lineup, he has shined on a frequent basis.

Things didn’t slow down, with Colorado reclaiming a two-goal lead 92 seconds after reclaiming the 3-2 lead. Ross Colton fired home his eighth goal of the season and continues to be red hot playing alongside the likes of Nathan MacKinnon and Mikko Rantanen.

Ottawa didn’t go away, however. Continuing to grind away, Claude Giroux beat Annunen on a quick shot from the right circle. Despite a slight screen from Devon Toews, the shot didn’t leave the ice and didn’t particularly look like a shot that should’ve beat Annunen, and it was again a one-goal game at 4-3.

This enabled Ottawa to pull for the extra skater, but after a brief push the Avs were able to exit the zone with the puck, and on the stick of Nathan MacKinnon, he burned the Sens defender along the boards to find the open ice, where he put the game on ice and secured a five-game winning streak for the Avs.

Giroux would add another goal with just under 10 seconds left, but Ottawa was unable to turn anything else onto the scoresheet in that time. Colorado skated away with an ugly-ish win, but a win at that.

Takeaways

Casey Mittelstadt continues to shine for the Avalanche. After being acquired from the Buffalo Sabres in the Bowen Byram trade, he was solid in his short time with the Avs last season. This season, he looks like a new player, fully confident in his understanding of the Avs systems. He’s a seamless fit in the Avs top six, and a driving force for the offense that excites you greatly when the likes of Artturi Lehkonen and Valeri Nichushkin come back.

Ross Colton continues to shine as well in an elevated role. He’s provided a different look on the Avs top line left wing that Jonathan Drouin, who hasn’t played since opening night against the Vegas Golden Knights, simply doesn’t offer, and that’s not a knock on Drouin. The physicality Colton plays with on each shift has made the lives of MacKinnon and Rantanen much easier and gives an element to the top line that’s reminiscent of what Gabriel Landeskog or the aforementioned Lehkonen and Nichushkin provide. I do think once healthy, he’ll revert back to his 3rd line duties, but I would be hesitant to pull him off the top powerplay. He has been a perfect fit in the bumper, and his shot is a threat to score from there that Drouin and Lehkonen’s shots do not provide.

Justus Annunen won his fourth consecutive start, and while the late push from Ottawa will reflect poorly in the stat sheet, Annunen made plenty of key saves when the game was tight. The young netminder looks confident and sharp, and while he’ll finally get a rest tomorrow night, I think he has a very firm grip on the starting job for the time being.

Upcoming

The Avalanche are back at it tomorrow night at Ball Arena, welcoming in Connor Bedard and the Chicago Blackhawks. Alexandar Georgiev figures to start in what will be a crucial game for his season outlook. The puck drops at 7:00 p.m. MT.