Good start propels Avs to road victory
Two goals from Holden help hold o≠ Predators
nashville, tenn. » Before Saturday night’s game against the Nashville Predators, Paul Stastny said itwould be important for theAvalanche to get off to a good start. That’s exactly what the Avs did, and it proved to be the difference.
Colorado jumped out to a 3-0 lead in the first period against the Predators and was able to hold on in the third period en route to a 5-4 victory despite a furious Nashville comeback attempt.
“It’s always important to play with the lead, especially when we’re on the road,” Avalanche coach Patrick Roy said.
Nick Holden scored two goals for the Avalanche, the first of which came when he was able to convert a rebound chance off a shot by rookie Nathan MacKinnon at 6:21 of the first period. Jan Hejda gave Colorado a 2-0 lead at 11:27 of the period when he fired a shot from the point past Nashville goaltender Devan Dubnyk.
Just 38 seconds later, Gabe Landeskog increased Colorado’s lead to 3-0 when he onetimed a pass from Stastny. MacKinnon also assisted on Landeskog’s goal.
It was a very good night for the Stastny-MacKinnon-Landeskog line, which was reunited as Stastny returned to action for the Avs after missing the previous two games because of an injury.
“Our line played well,” Stastny said. “I think we had a lot of chances. Two went in; probably could have had more. But if we keep playing like that, good things will come.”
Colorado seemed to sit back on its heels during the second period. The Predators were able to get some high-quality scoring chances against Avs goaltender Semyon Varlamov and finally converted 14:36 into the period when Patric Hornqvist scored on a 5-on-3 power play after penalties by Landeskog and Erik Johnson.
The Nashville comeback effort was temporarily put to a stop by the Avalanche to start the third period. Holden scored his second goal of the game on a blistering shot from the point that squeezed past Dubnyk for the goal. Matt Duchene added another goal during the third period on the power play tomake it 5-1.
However, the Predators refused to go away quietly.
Craig Smith scored for Nashville to make it 5-2, then Ryan Ellis tallied a goal from the point to bring the Predators within two once again. Roman Josi scored with less than three minutes remaining to bring the Predators within one. But they weren’t able to complete the comeback.
Holden was an unlikely source of offense for the Avalanche. His two goals doubled his season total, and he also contributed an assist.