DENVER (AP) – Colorado’s top line of Nathan MacKinnon, Gabriel Landeskog and Mikko Rantanen scored four goals together, and the Avalanche beat Minnesota 5-1 on Thursday night, setting the Wilds winning streak in five games.
Rantanen scored two goals for the Avalanche and scored his second goal at 6:30 in the third half with a backhand shot. Joonas Donskoi also scored for Colorado and ended an outlier with his eighth goal of the season at 1:57 a.m. of the third. Philipp Grubauer made 19 parades.
Victor Rask scored for Minnesota, which was on the defensive throughout the game. Colorado has left the Wild 55-20 behind.
The Avalanche was attacking aggressively from the start, shooting the Wild 25-6 in the first half and scoring two hits. They were also helped on the defensive with the return of Cale Makar and Bowen Byram. Both defenders returned after 10 and 9 missed games from upper body injuries.
MacKinnon brought the avalanche to the board at 11:10 am on the first day, highlighting an ankle shot between the circles that fell into the net past goalkeeper Cam Talbot. In less than a minute, Rantanen had put Colorado 2-0 ahead and threw the puck into the net from near a cross-ice pass by Samuel Girard.
From April 2nd, 4,050 fans will be admitted to Avalanche and Nuggets games
Minnesota moved to one when Rask scored the second goal on a power play at 8:41 a.m. However, this was made up at 3:07 p.m. of the period when Landeskog deployed his own ricochet and hit the puck into the net as it fell forward onto the ice in a power play score.
Minnesota and Colorado meet again on Saturday at the Denver Ball Arena. The teams have met five times this season, with Colorado having a 3-2 lead.
NOTES: The Colorado Department of Health and Environment has cleared the way for a limited number of fans to play the Avalanche home games at Ball Arena. According to the guidelines, a total of 4,050 fans will be allowed to attend starting April 2nd when the Avs host the St. Louis Blues. It will be the Avs’ first game in front of home fans since March 11, 2020, when they faced New York Rangers. … Fierce defender Carson Soucy was scratched while serving his one-game suspension for violating Arizona forward Conor Garland. … Colorado C JT Compher has missed a seventh game since sustaining an upper body injury against Anaheim on March 5th. But he’s making good progress and could return in the coming days. … It was only the ninth time in 28 games that the game was played under three goals.
Close modally
Suggest a correction
Suggest a correction
Comments are closed.