Colorado
Storming the Fortress | Colorado Avalanche
COLORADO AVALANCHE (49-25-6) AT LAS VEGAS GOLDEN KNIGHTS (43-28-8)
1:30 PM MDT | T-MOBILE ARENA | WATCH: TNT | LISTEN: 950 AM
The Avalanche travel to Las Vegas for their final road contest of 2023-24. Colorado has won six of its last seven road games. The Avalanche come into today’s game two points behind the Jets for second place in the Central Division. Both the Avalanche and Golden Knights have clinched Stanley Cup playoff berths. Vegas has been victorious in six of its past seven home contests coming into this matchup.
Latest Results:
April 13, 2024 WPG: 7 COL: 0
April 12, 2024 VGK: 7 MIN: 2
WINNIPEG WRAP UP
The Avalanche fell to the Jets 7-0 at Ball Arena on Saturday. The Jets tallied four in the first period that saw Sean Monahan, Gabriel Vilardi (power play), Josh Morrissey (power play) and Adam Lowry all light the lamp. Winnipeg added three more in the second period getting contributions from Tyler Toffoli, Monahan again and Lowry once more to secure the 7-0 victory.
AVS ACCOMPLISHMENTS
Nathan MacKinnon posted four shots on goal to reach 400 on the campaign. 4 shots away from 400 shots on goal. He’s just the 10th player in NHL history (16th instance) to record 400-plus shots in a single season. Phil Esposito (four times), Alex Ovechkin (three times), Bobby Hull (twice, Pavel Bure, Brett Hull, Jaromir Jagr, Paul Kariya, Bobby Orr and David Pastrnak as the only other NHLers to hit the 400 mark in a given season.
Alexandar Georgiev appeared in his 62nd game of the season, matching his career-high from 2022-23. Georgiev is expected to get the start again today in Vegas. The Ruse, Bulgaria native registered a 25-save shutout the last time he saw the Golden Knights on Jan. 10 (W, 3-0). Despite being the goaltender of record in the Nov. 4 contest, Georgiev has produced a.923 SV% and a 2.44 GAA in his career against Vegas in nine games.
HISTORY
The Avalanche own a 14-9-1 all-time record against the Golden Knights, with a 7-6-0 mark on the road. Colorado is 5-3-0 in its last eight matchups with Vegas. The Avs split the two contests this season with the Knights, with both teams winning their respective home game. In Vegas’ six seasons of existence Colorado has won four of the six regular season series.
VIVA LAS VEGAS
Vegas defeated Minnesota 7-2 on Friday night at T-Mobile Arena to clinch a berth in the Stanley Cup playoffs. The Golden Knights erupted in the first period with three goals in 5:38, getting contributions form Nicolas Roy (shorthanded), Pavel Dorofeyev and Jack Eichel (power play). Minnesota responded in the middle frame with Marat Khusnutdinov finding the back of the net for the first time in his career. Jonathan Marchessault answered back with his 42nd goal of the season to regain the three-goal lead for the Knights going into the third period. Vegas added to its lead when Tomas Hertl lit the lamp for the first time as a member of the Golden Knights. Ryan Hartman found the back of the net to cut into the lead, but Vegas would add two insurance markers from William Karlsson and Keegan Kolesar to seal the 7-2 win.
STATS TO KNOW
Valeri Nichushkin (2g/0) and Mikko Rantanen (0g/2a) pace the Avalanche this season with two points apiece against the Golden Knights.
Nathan MacKinnon has recorded 22 points (7g/15a) against Vegas in his career. Those 22 points are the ninth-most any NHL skater has tallied against the Knights.
The Avs have outscored the Golden Knights 55-44 in the past 21 matchups.
VALIANT VEGAS
Marchessault leads the Golden Knights in goals this campaign with 42, a career-high.
Noah Hanifin is tied for the tenth-most goals by a defenseman in the NHL this season having accumulated 13 in 2023-24 including two since joining Vegas.
Vegas ranks ninth among all NHL teams this season in hits with 1,948.
NUMBERS GAME
35
MacKinnon ranks tied for first (Auston Matthews and Zach Hyman) in the NHL among all forwards in plus-minus rating this season at +35.
2
The Avalanche are the only team in the NHL with two players from the same team to rank in the top five of power-play points. MacKinnon has recorded 47 points in the category and Rantanen has tallied 40.
1.16
Cale Makar has averaged the most points per-game by a blueliner in the NHL this campaign at 1.16 PPG.
QUOTE(S) THAT LEFT A MARK
“You got to find solutions, you have to dig in and be better. It starts competitively and physicality wise. The playoffs is another notch and they showed that tonight. We got a good taste of what we are going to see.”
– Colorado LW Andrew Cogliano on Learning From Mistakes
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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