Recap: Avalanche win streak snapped as offense falls flat against Canadiens

I guess you won’t win them all.

On Saturday night, the Colorado Avalanche were defeated by the visiting Montreal Canadiens by a final score of 2-1. After going up 1-0 early in the contest, the Avs as a whole fell flat, and were unable to get into high gear for much of the night against a Habs team who was coming off a 4-2 loss in Chicago to the Blackhawks on Friday evening.

Despite getting a point, the six-game win streak the Avs rode into the contest with was snapped, and in a boring, painstakingly frustrating fashion.

Let’s break it all down.

First Period

Coming in against a Habs team who played last night and was icing Jakub Dobes in between the pipes, there was a clear emphasis to get shots in on the unproven goaltender early, who was coming off of a shutout in his NHL debut. The Avs did exactly that, dominating possession time and working down the Canadiens defense en route to shots on net.

The Avs relentless pressure early resulted in two separate power plays before the halfway mark of the period. The Avs failed to capitalize on a Cole Caufield hooking penalty, but a did score a couple of minutes later on an Alex Newhook slashing call.

After Mikko Rantanen dug a puck free along the right half wall to keep the offensive possession alive, he found Cale Makar at the blueline, who found Nathan MacKinnon on the left half wall. MacKinnon lasered a feed towards the back post, and found a Moose crossing towards the backdoor. Rantanen tapped the puck home for the Avs 1-0 lead, and made it goals in four consecutive games.

Shortly after, Montreal got their first powerplay on a questionable call. Ross Colton was sprung for a mini-breakaway at the Habs blueline, and only had Habs Defenseman Lane Hutson trailing him. Colton fired a shot that was stopped by Dobes, and was simultaneously pushed by Hutson into Dobes, resulting in a goalie Interference call.

One night pushing an opponent into the goaltender and injuring him is not a penalty for goalie interference, and the next night it is, oh well.

The Avs killed the penalty, and things calmed down. In the final two minutes of the frame, the Habs started to come alive in the offensive zone after spending much of the period defending, but couldn’t capitalize on any of their chances.

Colorado skated into the dressing room up 1-0.