Home, sweet opener

As far as home openers go, the Avalanche produced straight-As for all but eight minutes Wednesday night at the Pepsi Center. ¶ Against the Bs — the Boston Bruins — Colorado excelled in every area for the first two periods in its first opportunity to re-ignite Mile High enthusiasm for the game after the lastplace disaster that was 2016-17. ¶ In holding on after Boston’s late two-goal rally, the Avs (3-1) received multiple-point nights from forwards Matt Duchene, Nathan MacKinnon, Nail Yakupov, Gabe Landeskog and Sven Andrighetto and never trailed in a 6-3 victory — their second in three days over Boston (1-2).

“That’s what we want right there. We want a game like that. We were great tonight,” Duchene said. “It was our best game of the season. Our last two games were the two best games of the season. We want to keep it going.”

A sellout crowd of 18,011 witnessed rookie Alex Kerfoot, Yakupov, Andrighetto and Duchene get the goals in taking a 4-1 lead and goalie Semyon Varlamov, who faced only nine shots through two periods, improve to 3-0 despite allowing third-period goals at 11:30 and 12:57.

“It was harder for me to stay focused, to stay in the game, to try to stay sharp, when I don’t have a lot of shots. It was hard. Very weird game,” Varlamov said. “We played outstanding tonight, but when it’s 4-1, it should be easy to close it out. It wasn’t easy. It was not an easy game.”

Andrighetto and Tyson Jost scored empty-net goals to put it away for the Avs, who are 3-1 for the second consecutive season.

Wednesday’s event featured pregame opening-night player introductions after a moment of silence for Las Vegas shooting victims.

And then Colorado went to work.

“This is a new group, and we want to show our best in front of the home town,” Avs coach Jared Bednar said after the morning skate.

Mission accomplished. The Avs took a 1-0 lead before dominating the second period and taking a 4-1 advantage into the third. Yakupov, Andrighetto (power play) and Duchene scored at 1:00, 12:37 and 15:43 of the second to turn the crowd into a frenzy.

Colorado outshot Boston 15-5 in the second period and 26-9 at that point. Bruins goalie Tuukka Rask was replaced after 40 minutes.

“All-around good effort by our group,” Bednar said. “I liked a lot of things that I saw.”

John Leyba, The Denver Post Avalanche center Alexander Kerfoot, left, celebrates his goal with right winger Nail Yakupov in the first period against the Bruins on Wednesday at the Pepsi Center. Yakupov later scored his third goal of the season in Colorado’s 6-3 victory over Boston.

John Leyba, The Denver Post Avalanche right winger Sven Andrighetto leaps past Bruins defenseman Charlie McAvoy in an attempt to get the puck down the ice during the first period of Wednesday night’s home-opener at the Pepsi Center. Colorado beat Boston 6-3, improving its record...