*Photo from Yahoo News*
As I've said before, sometimes all you need is one period. Mikko Rantanen had a goal and two assists, Nathan MacKinnon had a goal and an assist, and the Colorado Avalanche defeated the Calgary Flames 6-5 on Monday night in Denver.
Trailing by two goals entering the 3rd period, the Avalanche rattled off 3 straight goals to take the lead and win the game. Cale Makar and Ross Colton had a goal and an assist to go with MacKinnon, while Valeri Nichushkin had two assists.
Avalanche head coach Jared Bednar said that "There's a lot of good things in that game tonight. A lot. So, if we focus on the right things as a coaching staff, relay the right message to the guys, I would feel that that should give us some belief. It's not easy to score in this league, right? Period. Against anybody. So, we did a nice job of it tonight."
Nazem Kadri scored the first goal of the game, getting the Flames on the board 13:46 into the opening period, making it 1-0 on his 7th goal of the season. At the 18:14 mark of the first, Tomas Tatar scored his first goal with the Avalanche, tying the game 1-1.
Makar scored a power play goal 1:43 into the second period, making it 2-1 Avalanche. Andrew Mangiapane and Blake Coleman then scored for the Flames to put them ahead 3-2. Ben Meyers then scored for Colorado to tie it 3-3. Connor Zary and Yegor Sharangovich scored to make it 5-3 Flames after two periods.
At the 11:20 mark of the 3rd period, Colton scored for the Avalanche, making it 5-4 on his 8th goal of the season. Rantanen then scored his 13th goal of the season at the 13:31 mark of the period, making it 5-5 with assists from Makar and Nichushkin. With 4:30 left on the clock, MacKinnon scored his 12th goal of the season to put Colorado ahead for good.
MacKinnon said of his goal "Just a quick shot. Surprised him, I think. Low blocker. I just looked, and yeah, I know I do that high-glove move a lot. So, sometimes goalies, I feel like, lean to the high glove, and I did that move against San Jose last year for my 100th point as well in OT."
Getting the start for the Avalanche was Alexandar Georgiev. He didn't have it in this game, allowing 5 goals on 22 shots before he was pulled after the second period. Replacing him was Ivan Prosvetov, who stopped all 11 shots he was tested with by the Flames to pick up the win. Prosvetov's record improved to 3-2-1 in 8 games.
Starting for the Flames opposite Georgiev and Prosvetov was Dan Vladar, who got hit with the loss to drop to 4-4-1 in 9 starts. Vladar turned aside 32 out of the 38 shots on goal the Avalanche had, recording a .842 save percentage.
Flames head coach Ryan Huska said of the loss that "We had a tough stretch in the third period there where we made a mistake with the puck, and they got a lot of momentum from that point. So, we weren't able to, I guess, stop the momentum from that point."
The Flames get back in action on Tuesday as they resume a back to back by playing the Vegas Golden Knights, with Dustin Wolf set to start. The Avalanche take on the Buffalo Sabres on Wednesday, with Georgiev expected to start.
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