Colorado
No. 13 Colorado State seeks to rebound against Boise State
No. 13 Colorado State looks to get back on track Tuesday at Boise State after suffering a loss in which it struggled late at Utah State on Saturday night.
The Broncos (10-4, 1-0 Mountain West) are coming off Friday’s 78-69 win at San Jose State.
The Rams (13-2, 1-1) lost 77-72 to Utah State after they could not convert a field goal attempt for almost four minutes in a span in which the Aggies went on a 10-0 run.
Utah State, which made 63 percent of its shots from the field in the second half, took a 65-57 lead with 3:57 left after the run.
Nique Clifford and Patrick Cartier had 18 and 15 points, respectively, but were playing with four fouls during Utah State’s 10-0 run.
Clifford and Cartier eventually fouled out.
“Our defense really kind of fell apart,” Colorado State coach Niko Medved said. “Too many mistakes. We lost our discipline and we had some guys that, maybe because they were in foul trouble, were maybe playing a little bit tentative defensively.
“You can’t do that because that was not good enough.”
Isaiah Stevens led the Rams with 21 points and eight assists. He made 8 of 16 shots from the field, 4 of 8 from 3-point range.
The Broncos ended their game by outscoring San Jose State 30-12 over the final 10 minutes after the Spartans led 57-48 with 10:36 remaining.
O’Mar Stanley, who scored a career-best 30 points and collected 11 rebounds, was 7 of 8 from the free-throw line in the waning minutes.
Boise State held San Jose State’s MJ Amey to five points in the second half after he scored 25 in the first half.
The Broncos’ Tyson Degenhart had 17 of his 21 points in the second half.
“It feels a lot better than going home 0-1,” Degenhart said. “It was a much-needed win for us to get off on the right foot in conference play. It feels good to start it out the right way.”
Boise State coach Leon Rice was critical of his team’s 15 turnovers that led to 22 points for San Jose State.
The Spartans had 21 fast-break points compared to only seven for the Broncos.
Boise State trailed for 30:53 of the game.
“People will look at the score tomorrow and back in the old days they’d pick up the paper in the morning and say, ‘Well, that looked easy. That must have been easy,’” Rice said. “But no, when you saw it in person, there was a lot going against us.”
Boise State won the rebounding battle 43-23 against San Jose State.
Colorado State was outrebounded 45-33 by Utah State.
The Rams also went 4 of 11 at the free-throw line compared to 20 of 23 for the Aggies.
“We got outscored by 16 from the free-throw line,” Medved said. “A lot of that is we have to make them and we have to play with more physicality.
“Disappointing because I thought we had an opportunity tonight. They executed better than we did down the stretch.”
—Field Level Media
Colorado
Avalanche discipline, power play falters, Central Division lead shrinks in 5-2 loss to Wild
The Colorado Avalanche had a chance Thursday night to regain some real separation between them and the Minnesota Wild.
It didn’t happen, and special teams were again an issue.
Minnesota’s Joel Eriksson Ek scored a pair of power-play goals, while the Avalanche took too many penalties and did not convert its chances with the extra man in a 5-2 loss at Ball Arena. The Wild scored on two of six power plays, both in the second period, then added a shorthanded goal into an empty net for good measure.
“We took six (penalties). Six is too many, especially against a power play like theirs,” Avs coach Jared Bednar said. “We had a slow start to the second and then just kind of started getting going, then took a bunch of penalties and kind of took the momentum away and swung it back in their favor again.”
Mackenzie Blackwood was excellent early in this contest and stopped 31 of 34 shots for the Avs in his first start since the Olympic break. Colorado, which went 0-for-3 on the power play, has not scored an extra-man goal in back-to-back games since Dec. 31 and Jan. 3. The Avs are 2-for-31 with the man advantage since Jan. 16, and at 15.1% are last in the NHL.
The Wild are now just five points behind the Avs in the Central Division, though Colorado has two games in hand. Filip Gustavsson made 44 saves for the visitors.
“I think we crated enough chances to win the hockey game,” Bednar said. “We give up the (second power-play goal) and that’s the difference in the hockey game for me. We had a chance (on the power play) … we score and it’s a tie game. We haven’t had an easy time capitalizing on some of our chances that we created in the last month.
“I’d like to see that turn around a little bit.”
Minnesota took advantage of three penalties on Colorado in a span of 53 seconds to take the lead with 2:23 left in the second period. Captain Gabe Landeskog was sent to the box for elbowing Eriksson Ek away from the play at 14:15 and Valeri Nichushkin was called for cross-checking at 15:04.
That gave the Wild a 5-on-3, but it went from bad to worse in a hurry for the home side. Brock Nelson won the 3-on-5 in his own end, but Brent Burns’ backhanded attempt to clear the puck out of the zone went into the stands for a delay of game.
Minnesota had a 5-on-3 for 1:56, which Colorado successfully killed off, but because Burns’ two minutes didn’t start until Landeskog’s penalty ended, there was more 5-on-4 time and Eriksson Ek scored his second of the night. The Swedish Olympian was trying to send a cross-crease pass to Kirill Kaprizov, but it hit the inside of Blackwood’s right leg and pinballed across the goal line.
Because of the extended penalty time, both Eriksson Ek and Boldy officially logged a shift of more than four minutes, leading to that goal.
“I’m not a big fan of the penalties we took, necessarily,” Landeskog said. “Obviously, mine is a penalty. Val, I felt like he was protecting himself and Burns, that’s a penalty. There’s nothing to argue about there. But yeah, that tilts the ice for sure and just gives them unnecessary momentum.
“So yeah, undisciplined and we’ve got to be better there for sure.”
Eriksson Ek put Minnesota in front at 7:48 of the second period. Cale Makar was called for slashing when his one-handed swipe while Yakov Trenin was attempting to shoot from the left wing. Trenin’s stick broke, so Makar went to the box.
Blackwood made the initial save on Matt Boldy’s shot from the high slot, but Eriksson Ek was there near the left post to clean up the rebound.
Martin Necas continued his hot run with a goal to even the score at 13:30 of the middle frame. Nathan MacKinnon picked up the puck in his own zone and carried it into the offensive end. He left a drop pass for Necas near the right point and then played fullback, driving Wild defenseman Daemon Hunt back to give Necas space and then providing a screen on a lethal wrist shot from his Czech linemate.
That was Necas’ 24th goal of the season. He added a second goal in the final minute after the Wild had built a three-goal advantage to give him 25 on the season.
It’s also three in two games since the Olympic break. Necas had three goals and eight points in five games for Czechia at the Olympics in Milan, equaling his country’s record for points at the event.
MacKinnon missed Colorado’s first game back on Wednesday because of maintenance. He actually slipped to third in the NHL scoring race as of Thursday morning, in part because Tampa Bay’s Nikita Kucherov has now has 53 points in his past 23 games to track down MacKinnon and Edmonton’s Connor McDavid to make it a three-man race for the Art Ross Trophy.
McDavid (five times) and Kucherov (three) have combined to win the Art Ross in eight of the past nine years. MacKinnon has never won it, but has finished second each of the past two seasons.
Minnesota scored a second goal off a Colorado player to make it a 3-1 game and then added two empty-net tallies around Necas’ second goal to seal the Wild’s sixth win in a row.
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Late Thursday morning, a house fire spreading into the nearby woods in Colorado’s Golden Gate Canyon prompted officials to issue a pre-evacuation order to nearby residents. Firefighters have since brought the blaze under control.
According to the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office, a house fire broke out around 11:30 a.m. in the 10600 block of Ralston Creek Road in Golden Gate Canyon, located around 25 miles west of Denver. The fire then began to spread into the nearby trees and grass.
Multiple fire units quickly responded to the scene, and the JCSO issued a pre-evacuation notice to all residents within a three-mile radius, warning them to be prepared to leave at a moment’s notice.
At 12:34 p.m., the sheriff’s office announced that the fire is no longer spreading and the burn area has been contained to less than an acre. A photo shared by JCSO shows a structure nearly completely destroyed by the fire.
Pre-evacuation orders were lifted around 1 p.m.
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