It’s all about fun on the road

Life on the road in the NHL can be a tough and unrewarding grind.

But the Colorado Avalanche continue to find it a fun place to be after Mikko Rantanen scored two goals and Matt Nieto and Gabriel Landeskog added one apiece in a 4-1 victory Monday night against the Philadelphia Flyers.

The win capped a 3-0-1 road trip for the Avalanche, and that kind of record makes for a lot of fun.

Landeskog had a hat trick on the trip to New Jersey and clinched this one with his eighth goal early in the third period.

Semyon Varlamov was solid in net and stopped 37 shots.

Predators

Nashville coach Peter Laviolette pulled out a bull’s head to lighten the grind of the 82-game NHL regular season and challenge the Predators to get a couple of road wins.

Win both games in western Canada, and Laviolette said he would put on the bull’s head while talking to reporters.

So, the Predators won both contests, beating Calgary, 5-3, and shutting out the Oilers in Edmonton, 3-0, Saturday night. That’s when Laviolette put on the bull’s head.

“Guys want to have fun at the end of the day,” Laviolette said Monday. “When there’s a couple minutes left in the game and Roman [Josi] finally puts in the empty netter and they’re laughing at me and calling for Bushwhacker at the press conference you know I’m in trouble. But it was fun.”

Laviolette’s wife, Kristen, spotted the bull’s head at a store and brought it home knowing her husband would use it somehow. The bull’s head reminded the coach of the famed rodeo bull, Bushwhacker.

“He goes into teams’ buildings and he dismantles people,” Laviolette said of the now-retired Bushwhacker.

Hurricanes

Carolina also was on the road Monday night and had fun, too.

Justin Faulk, Micheal Ferland and Jordan Martinook scored the goals as the Hurricanes best Detroit, 3-1. The win raised the surprising Hurricanes record to 5-3-1 and dropped the struggling and punchless Red Wings to 1-6-2.