What a difference a week makes.
Following Thursday’s 5-1 victory over Utah Hockey Club at Delta Center, the Avalanche have completely erased their 0-4-0 start, winning their fourth straight game to get back to .500. Justus Annunen made 25 saves to earn his third consecutive win for Colorado.
What a difference a week makes.
Following Thursday’s 5-1 victory over Utah Hockey Club at Delta Center, the Avalanche have completely erased their 0-4-0 start, winning their fourth straight game to get back to .500. Justus Annunen made 25 saves to earn his third consecutive win for Colorado.
Ross Colton continued his scoring ways. He capitalized on the power play for the fourth time to reach seven goals in the first eight games. Unfortunately for the NHL’s second-leading scorer, Colton left the game with an upper-body injury and did not return. He took a slash to the hand. There were no further updates about him after the game, but the Avs will have two days off before they play again at home on Sunday.
Colorado added to their lead thanks to Cale Makar’s third of the season. The superstar defenseman has 15 points in eight games and leads the NHL in points. In the second period, Casey Mittelstadt scored to make it 3-0 before Ivan Ivan scored his first career NHL goal on the power play. Mittelstadt finished the night with a goal and two assists.
The fifth goal came from Joel Kiviranta in the third period. It’s his fourth goal in three games, scoring at least a goal in each contest.
Colorado has outscored the opposition 16-5 in the past 11 periods (and one OT).
It all started last Friday. The Avs entered the first intermission trailing the Anaheim Ducks 2-0. Despite dominating the first 20 minutes, Colorado was on its way to potentially starting a season 0-5 for the first time in team history. But instead, head coach Jared Bednar’s club scored four of five goals, capped off by an OT winner from Nathan MacKinnon to win 4-3.
In the following three games, Annunen got the nod, winning 4-1. 3-2 and now 5-1. He was the star of the show in San Jose and had another solid showing in Seattle in a game where Kiviranta had his first multi-goal game in the regular season.
In the first-ever game against Utah Hockey Club, Annunen’s 25 stops were the highlight.
Good: Justus Annunen
Outside of a third-period breakaway goal for Lawson Crouse when the Avs already had a four-goal lead, Annunen was perfect and did his part in allowing Colorado to continue its winning ways.
As mentioned, he was needed in San Jose when Colorado was outplayed for most of the middle parts of the game. And in Seattle, Colorado allowed six shots on goal before the game was three minutes old. Annunen kept the Kraken off the board until the Avs scored first.
Annunen wasn’t needed in quite the same way on Thursday, but there’s something to be said about how he’s calmed things down in the crease over the past three days.
Bad: Literally the one Utah goal
/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/73563253/2149282371.0.jpg)
When you play a near-perfect game and almost earn your first shutout of the season, there isn’t much bad to take away from a performance. Colorado scored two goals in the first period and Makar had as many shots as Utah (five) at the first intermission. The team added two more in the second intermission, leading 4-0 before the third period.
In the final frame, Utah outshot the Avs 11-4. Which, if you follow score effects, is quite normal. With Colorado already up by four, it’s completely understandable that Utah Hockey Club would be the team pressing and cheating to create more opportunities on offense. They’ve got nothing to lose by then.
On their only goal, Crouse caught Calvin de Haan flatfooted while Sam Malinski was calling to the bench for a change. He took advantage of the opportunity and made the Avs’ third pair look silly, breaking through the two blueliners and ending Annunen’s shutout bid with just 4:32 remaining.
I know, we’re grasping at straws here.
