ANAHEIM, Calif. — The Colorado Avalanche looked tired after one period Friday night, but one of their new goaltenders kept them afloat until the rest of the club found enough energy to grind out a win.

That script has been a familiar one during the toughest stretch of schedule the Avs have faced, and these points might prove to be incredibly valuable. Scott Wedgewood made 29 saves, the Avalanche rebounded to fend off the Anaheim Ducks, 4-2, at Honda Center.

“After the first 20 (minutes), we weren’t happy with anything,” Wedgewood said. “A couple guys voiced their opinions on what could be done better and we turned the tide. You can’t accept the first period at this level.

“You put this jersey on and you expect to win every night, right? You have this squad, this team and ever since I got here, I put the jersey on and I expect two points. We expect two points. It’s the standard you have to hold ourselves to.”

Nathan MacKinnon had a goal and two assists, while Cale Makar, Mikko Rantanen and Valeri Nichushkin had two points each. Wedgewood, along with Mackenzie Blackwood, has repeatedly provided a level of consistent goaltending the club had been lacking.

The overall play for the Avs is not near its peak, and a season full of injuries combined with a stretch of 13 road games in the past 17 contests has likely played a part in that. But they have now won six of eight, and are a season-high five games better than .500 (20-15-0).

“You chip it in different ways,” Avs coach Jared Bednar said. “We get a power-play goal, a 5-on-5 goal, a shorthanded goal, then the guys did a nice job with the empty net. I thought the penalty kill was great.

“But probably the difference in this game because of what we gave up — which was too much — was Wedgewood. I thought he was outstanding.”

This game may have turned on a bad-luck play … for the Avs. Anaheim defenseman Olen Zellweger clipped MacKinnon in the face with his stick and was sent to the penalty box for high sticking. The officials conferred and decided to wipe away the infraction. It looked from multiple replay angles that MacKinnon was hit by the puck after Keaton Middleton tried to clear it out of danger, but a zoomed-out angle showed that Zellweger clearly got the reigning MVP ahead of the puck.

So, with the Avs down a goal and trying to kill off a penalty, the hockey gods evened out the fortune. Zellweger stumbled near the top of the Anaheim offensive zone, which allowed Logan O’Connor to spring Parker Kelly for a breakaway and a shorthanded goal at 6:40 of the second. It was Kelly’s third goal of the season and Colorado’s second of the year while shorthanded.

Nichushkin put the Avalanche in front midway through the second. Anaheim goalie John Gibson didn’t handle a Makar shot cleanly, and Nichushkin was waiting at the doorstep for one of the easiest goals he’s going to score. It was his 10th of the season in just 18 games played.

Colorado’s power play came to California mired in a 5-for-48 slump, but the Avs scored twice with the extra man Thursday night in San Jose and struck again for an insurance goal early in the third against Anaheim. MacKinnon started the play with a rare dump-in from the neutral zone. Rantanen kept the Ducks’ clearing attempt in the offensive zone, and then MacKinnon found Makar with a cross-ice pass for the defenseman’s 10th goal of the year at 3:30 of the third.

MacKinnon added an empty-net goal, and pushed his NHL-leading point total to 55 in 35 games.

The Avalanche survived the first period, but only because Wedgewood was stellar. Colorado looked like a team playing on the road for the 13th time in 17 games, and like a club playing for the second straight night against a rested team. Anaheim had nearly 80% of the expected goals and seven of the eight high-danger chances in the opening 20 minutes, per Natural Stat Trick.

Beyond Kelly’s goal, the Avs’ penalty kill has also surged since completing the double goaltending switch. Colorado killed off five Anaheim power plays in this one, including one in the final four minutes. The Avs are now 20 for 21 on the kill since swapping Alexandar Georgiev for Blackwood.

“When we made the goalie switches, you see where our penalty kill is going,” Bednar said. “The analytics have been good all year. I’m not putting it on our past goaltending, because that’s not fair, either, but goalies have their strengths and weaknesses and it seems like we’ve got a couple guys here now that are really in tune with our penalty kill.

“We’re getting the saves we need. We’re getting the whistles we need. They’ve just been really sharp.”

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Originally Published: December 20, 2024 at 10:54 PM MST

The Denver District Attorney’s Office will not file criminal charges related to the inadvertent release of some voting system passwords by the Colorado Secretary of State’s Office, prosecutors announced Friday.

In a statement, District Attorney Beth McCann said the release of the passwords, which were posted on the secretary of state’s website for several months starting in June, was not “an effort to influence the outcome of an election.” Instead, she wrote, the passwords release was an error that didn’t constitute a violation of law.

A law firm hired by Secretary of State Jena Griswold’s office previously determined that the passwords’ release was inadvertent, though the review found that the office violated information security policies.

The passwords were included in a hidden tab on a larger spreadsheet by a staffer who left Griswold’s office in May 2023, the firm’s review found. Current staff members were not aware of the hidden tab when they published the spreadsheet online a year later.

In a separate statement Friday, Griswold’s office reiterated McCann’s findings and said that it had cooperated with the Denver investigation. Spokesman Jack Todd declined to comment further.

McCann’s office opened the investigation in November, shortly after the Colorado Republican Party announced in late October the discovery of the spreadsheet containing hidden passwords, which could be publicly downloaded.

There has been no evidence indicating the passwords were used to alter or interfere with election results, nor has any evidence suggested that elections systems were compromised. Anyone seeking to do so would’ve needed another set of passwords as well as physical access to controlled, camera-monitored areas in county clerks’ offices.

According to a 26-page report issued by McCann’s office, investigators spoke with several current and former state employees and also reviewed employees’ laptops and email accounts.

In an Oct. 24 email exchange among secretary of state staff — sent the day the office became aware that the passwords were publicly available — staffers sought to take down the spreadsheet. After being told about the issue, one employee whose name is redacted from the report replied: “Jesus.”

Investigators also received numerous “sworn affidavits” from people and groups seeking an investigation into the situation. None of those affidavits included new information or evidence that a crime had been committed, according to the report, and none came from within Denver.

The district attorney’s office in El Paso County has said it received two affidavits alleging state law violations, and the agency said it would cooperate with Denver prosecutors and review the Denver investigation. A spokeswoman for that office did not return messages seeking comment Friday.

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Originally Published: December 20, 2024 at 5:25 PM MST

Laws Whiskey House this weekend will unveil the pièce de résistance of the two-story addition to its Denver distillery: A sprawling upstairs bar and lounge with a twilight view of the mountains.

Distillery co-founder Al Laws spent seven years overseeing the construction of the 4,000-square-foot Whiskey Sanctuary, located at 80 W. Arkansas Ave. between South Broadway and the light-rail line. The upstairs lounge is the last section to open in the new space, which includes a tour room, a small bar and sectionals downstairs.

A spiral staircase with tall white balusters leads to the new floor. (There is also an elevator.) Upstairs, the bar wraps around in a sleek oval with plenty of seating, while larger parties can settle down in the mid-century style sofas and chairs.

The tasting room serves ten signature cocktails using Laws liquors, such as a whiskey sour ($12) made with its Four Grain Bourbon. The bar incorporates the house-made Blanco agave spirit into the Siesta ($13), along with Campari, lime, grapefruit and organic agave nectar. There is also the Jungle Bird ($14), a boozy cocktail made with Aperol, pineapple, lime and an 85-proof rum named after Laws’ wife and distillery co-founder, Marianne.

Cocktail glasses sparkled in the dimly lit space during a soft opening last week. The sun had long set. Bordered by the floor-to-ceiling windows of the lounge, the backlit mountains dissolved into the night. Peyton Mason, the CFO of Laws, called it “the best seat in the house.”

A Laws packaging facility is visible from the lounge’s overlook. The company, which initially hoped to open the Whiskey Sanctuary by August or September, recently cut hours for two of its packaging employees due to the changing tides of the industry, Mason said. Laws employs fewer than 40 people, he said.

Flights and single pours are also available upstairs. Bar snacks include chorizo ($6) and veggie ($5) cones, almonds and olives ($5) and tinned fish at market price.

The ground floor opened a couple of months ago for distillery tours starting at $20 a person. Participants enter a room meant to resemble a chapel (Laws himself hand-carved the pews), walk into the distillery and exit through a small bar where they can order pours of bourbon and rye whiskey varieties.

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