Good & Bad: Blackwood Shines, Rest of the Avs Struggle, but Avalanche Win in OT

DENVER — Jared Bednar wasn’t happy with his team’s performance on Tuesday and made that clear postgame. But the Avalanche were still victorious, erasing a late third-period deficit before getting another overtime game-winning goal from Devon Toews.

They start their five-game homestand with a 3-2 victory over the New York Rangers.

“We’ll take the points, but yeah, unimpressive,” Bednar said.

Colorado trailed 2-1 and had to pull its goalie late with hopes of forcing OT. With Mackenzie Blackwood on the bench, the 6-on-5 attack looked better than the team’s earlier power plays.

Artturi Lehkonen tapped home a rebound after Mikko Rantanen wired a one-timer off a Nathan MacKinnon setup.

That’s what the power play needs to look like,” Bednar said. “That was hard work.”

In OT, it was Logan O’Connor on the tail end of a long shift that made the play happen. The hard-working forward stole the puck away behind the Rangers goal and sent it to MacKinnon, who just jumped off the bench. MacKinnon quickly found Toews at the circle for the one-timer.

That’s Toews’ second OT winner in two weeks and his sixth goal of the season. Five of those goals have come in the last eight games.

“OC makes that whole play happen with his relentless forecheck,” Toews said. “That play does not happen without him on the ice. He sets that goal up and makes it all happen. I just was on the scoring end of it but that’s his goal. He did all the work on that.”

Blackwood was excellent and was far and away the highlight of the night More on him below.

Parker Kelly scored first for the Avs before the Rangers knotted things up on a shorthanded goal from Sam Carrick. They later took the lead in the second period thanks to Adam Edstrom. Blackwood again only surrendered two goals.

Good: Blackwood steals two points

There wasn’t a better player on the ice for either team. Blackwood was incredible, stopping at least five breakaways in a game where the team in front of him didn’t do all that much to help him.

In OT, Blackwood was Colorado’s best penalty killer, eliminating a full two minutes of Rangers PP time with several big saves. Following the kill, top forward Mika Zibanejad was sprung in on the breakaway but Blackwood stopped him too.

“Sometimes things go well, and sometimes they don’t,” Blackwood said. “They can’t go well forever, but you can try and do your best as long as you can.”

Going back to the first period, Blackwood did his part to keep the Avs in this. The Rangers had four breakaways by the halfway mark of the game. Two of them resulted in goals. Both times, the road team dominated the rest of the period after scoring on those breakaways. When Carrick tied it 1-1, New York controlled play until the intermission.

Things began pretty even in the second. But after Edstrom’s goal at 9:59, the Rangers again dominated and had a 9-1 shot advantage the rest of the way.

All of this goes back to Blackwood playing well. It shouldn’t have been 1-1 at the first intermission, nor should the Avs have been trailing by just a goal through 40 minutes. Blackwood made kick saves, second-chance saves, breakaway saves, and was solid on the PK. The result: An opportunity for the rest of the team to figure things out in the final moments of regulation and win it in OT.

“We get zero points if he’s not the best player on the ice,” Bednar said.

Bad: Special Teams fall flat

It’s bad enough to have a snakebitten power play, but it’s even worse when a power play not only leads to a shorthanded goal against but also completely shifts a game.

Before the Avs’ first PP, they were manhandling the Rangers. They were creating a ton of space by forcing New York to back off. MacKinnon was flying out there. A lot of guys were — even Casey Mittelstadt, who’s trying to shake off this cold streak. But then Chris Kreider went to the box for tripping up Cale Makar and everything changed.

On that man advantage, Makar misplayed the puck in the offensive zone and lost it to Carrick. The Rangers forward skated in all alone and deked Blackwood to tie things up at 1-1. From that moment on, the Rangers took control. Blackwood made a whole bunch of late first-period saves.

Colorado had five shots on goal in the first 11 minutes. From the moment Carrick scored shorthanded until the end of the second period, the Avalanche only managed eight shots.

They even had another power play opportunity during that time.

Honorable mention: The Josh Manson and Keaton Middleton pairing should never happen again.