*Photo from Mile High Hockey*
That early season slump is pretty far gone now. Bowen Byram scored, Nathan MacKinnon had a goal and an assist, and the Colorado Avalanche defeated the Winnipeg Jets with a 5-1 victory on Friday night in Winnipeg.
MacKinnon, Mikko Rantanen, and JT Compher all had a goal and an assist for the Avalanche, who won their 4th straight game. They are also 5-0-1 in their last 6 games, 6-2-2 in their last 10, and 12-2-2 in their last 16 games, running their record to 32-19-5 on the season.
Avalanche head coach Jared Bednar said that "Some of our top finishers in MacKinnon and Rantanen, they kind of lead the way out of the gate and it carried over for the rest of our hockey game. I think we had a good start, no question. We were skating, we were winning some puck touches in the zone that got us off to the races and odd-man rushes. I just thought we had some good jump."
MacKinnon got the Avalanche started right out of the gate, making it 1-0 just 19 seconds into the game on his 20th goal of the season. With the Jets on the power play 3:12 into the game, Mason Appleton answered back to tie the game. Evan Rodrigues then got the lone assist on Rantanen's 36th goal of the season to make it 2-1 Colorado.
Not long after, it was Compher's turn, making it 3-1 on his 12th goal of the season, assisted by Rantanen and MacKinnon. Byram then scored 10:58 into the first to make it 4-1 Avalanche on his 5th goal of the season. Matt Nieto scored what wound up being the final goal of the game in the second period, making it a 5-1 score.
Bednar said of the win that "We had some really good discipline, structurally sound, made them earn all their chances. I thought we did a nice job on the defending side of it, moved the puck pretty efficiently tonight, so it turned out to be a pretty good performance for our group."
It was Alexandar Georgiev in net for the Avalanche, putting up another strong performance in a breakout season. Georgiev stopped all but one of the 27 shots that came at him, good for a .963 save percentage. His record improves to 24-12-4 with the win.
Starting for the Jets was Connor Hellebuyck, who got tagged with the loss to fall to 26-18-1 on the season. Hellebuyck made 21 saves on 26 shots from the Avalanche, recording a .808 save percentage. He was pulled from the game in favor of David Rittich, who made 10 saves in relief.
Appleton said after the game that "They scored 19 seconds into the game. It's unacceptable. We rebounded, scored a goal, tied it up, and then from there we were chasing the game once they scored their second goal. You want to give credit to them, they're a really good hockey team, but we didn't help ourselves tonight. We're a really good hockey team when we want to be. We were not that tonight."
The Avalanche finish up a back to back by taking on the Calgary Flames on Saturday night, with Georgiev the likely starter with Pavel Francouz injured. Hellebuyck is expected to start for the Jets against the New York Islanders on Sunday afternoon.
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