*Photo from Lancaster Online*
Things are humming along at a mile high. Nathan MacKinnon had a goal and an assist, Logan O'Connor scored two goals, and the Colorado Avalanche defeated the Los Angeles Kings 5-1 on Friday night in Denver.
Paced by multi point games from O'Connor, MacKinnon, and Ross Colton, the Avalanche secured their 3rd straight win and 4th out of 5 games entering their bye week before the all star break. They are also 7-3-0 in their last 10 games and 32-14-3 on the season, leading the Central Division.
Avalanche head coach Jared Bednar said after the game "Pretty happy with the way our guys played again tonight, from the goaltender out, against a really good team. It's nice to win a couple games and be playing some solid hockey going into the break. So guys feel good about it now and then get away from the game for a little bit, do a little bit of conditioning, and hopefully pick up where we left off."
It was O'Connor who started the scoring in this one, giving the Avalanche a 1-0 lead on his 12th goal of the season. At the 14:55 mark of the first period, O'Connor doubled the lead to 2-0 on his second goal of the night. With 1:30 left on the clock, MacKinnon's 31st goal of the season made it a 3-0 lead after one period.
Kevin Fiala scored on the power play for the Kings 6:20 into the second period, cutting the deficit to 3-1 on his 12th goal of the season. Later in the period, Josh Manson made it 4-1 Colorado on his 6th goal of the season. The only goal of the 3rd period came from Cale Makar just 31 seconds in, making it 5-1 with Colton and MacKinnon assisting.
O'Connor said of his two goal game that "As a line, we're just having a lot of fun out there and playing predictable to each other. We're using our strengths to our advantage. The second goal, it's all the work by Woody and Colton getting in on the forecheck and Woody finding me there. Maybe I put it in there, but the work happened a lot further ahead in the play."
It was Alexandar Georgiev who started for the Avalanche in their last game before he heads to the all star game. Georgiev stopped all but one of the 27 shots the Kings had, giving him a .963 save percentage as he improved his record to 27-11-2.
Starting for the Kings was another all star this year in Cam Talbot, who didn't have it in this one. Talbot allowed 3 goals on 12 shots in the first period before David Rittich came on for the last two periods. Rittich stopped 17 of the 19 shots he faced in relief.
Kings head coach Todd McClellan said of the loss that "I thought we started well and then gave a couple of goals up from distance and that set us back. But we had our opportunities to score as well, to pull ourselves back in the game and we didn't do that. To get down to a team like this, it's hard to come back, but I thought our guys stuck with it for most of the night."
The Kings are back in action on Sunday afternoon as they face the St. Louis Blues, with Rittich expected to start. The Avalanche don't get back in action until February 5 due to their bye week and the all star game, scheduled to face the New York Rangers that day.
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