From trash to net, Mikko makes ’em
PHILADELPHIA» Mikko Rantanen sat on a bench in front of the cramped and nameless visiting team lockers Saturday morning and ripped off the tape securing his shin pads. He balled up the wraps and chucked them far across the room, off a concrete wall and down into a trash can. He never called bank.
He looked around for applause. No one noticed. “Thank you, thank you,” he said, to nobody in particular.
The Avalanche noticed him plenty Saturday night. Rantanen’s bank-shot tally in the second period and his shootout goal after a wildly entertaining overtime finally pushed Colorado to a 5-4 victory over the Flyers on Broad Street.
“It was going back and forth. There were chances all around,” Rantanen said. “I should try that shot again (Sunday).”
Rantanen deked quickly to his left to sneak a shootout score past Philadelphia goaltender Michal Neuvirth to seal the Avs’ victory.
Nathan Mackinnon also scored in the shootout. Colorado’s Semyon Varlamov smothered a gutshot from Flyers captain Claude Giroux and
he stuffed Jakub Voracek with a pad save. He gave Rantanen a shot at the winner.
The Avs (8-5-0) have won three in a row and four of their past five.
“That was a really fun game,” Colorado coach Jared Bednar said. “Back and forth for a while. Both teams left it on the ice for sure.”
Playing 3-on-3 in overtime, the Avs and Flyers combined for 11 shots on goal — but none sneaked through.
Late in the second period, Rantanen formed a triangle with Alexander Kerfoot and Mackinnon. Kerfoot drilled a pass to the goal line on Rantanen’s stick. He onetimed a pass toward Mackinnon on the far side. Mackinnon was ready to bury a goal, but it never got there. Rantanen’s pass redirected off Philadelphia defenseman Robert Hagg’s stick and into the net.
“I had him,” Rantanen said of his pass toward Mackinnon. “The D got a stick on it, but this time, it went in. It was a good bump for our team.”
It was Rantanen’s fourth goal in the past three games. The Avs’ leading scorer this season, though, left for the locker room in the third period after he was hit in the face. He returned just in time.
His goal in the moment gave the Avs a significant advantage. Colorado was 7-0 this season when leading after two periods and Philadelphia had yet to win when trailing into the third, with an 04-1 mark.
“It was an exciting game,” Rantanen said, with a deep cut above his swollen upper lip. “It was a great road win for us.”
The third period blew up like 1980s-style hockey. In a twominute span in the early going, Voracek tied the score for Philadelphia with a one-handed rebound goal.
Colorado’s Nail Yakupov quickly returned the lead to the Avs, after Matt Duchene backchecked the puck in the Flyers’ zone and left Yakupov with an open road for a five-hole goal past Neuvirth.
The wildness subsided only after Dale Weise tied the score again, 4-4, when he went untouched in front of the goal and pushed the puck through.