Up 2, down 2, wind up with 1
BLUE JACKETS 5, AVALANCHE 4 (OT) Colorado takes early lead, gives up four straight goals, fights back for point in loss
COLUMBUS, OHIO» When Tyson Barrie and Carl Soderberg scored 12 seconds apart early in Thursday night’s game, the Avalanche appeared headed toward a pivotal win.
By the second intermission, though, its lightning-quick, twogoal lead had dissolved and it was staring at a two-goal deficit to the Columbus Blue Jackets.
The Avalanche recovered and forced overtime with third-period goals from Gabe Landeskog and Soderberg, whose second goal of the night knotted the score with 3:18 left in regulation, but ultimately fell 5-4 at Nationwide Arena on Seth Jones’ goal 59 seconds into the extra session.
“We showed some character to come back,” Soderberg said. “There are 15 games to go, and we have to get points in every game, so we had to make a push. We came back strong.”
It was the third consecutive overtime loss — and point — for the Avs, who suffered overtime defeats to the Blackhawks and Predators earlier in the week.
“I give our guys credit. We found a way to carve out a point,” said Avs coach Jared Bednar. “I don’t think we deserved the
point tonight, but (goalie Semyon Varlamov) made some big saves down the stretch, and … we got enough guys contributing. But we’ve certainly got to be better than that if we expect to win.”
Still, they managed to earn a point for the eighth time in the past nine games after starting the night tied with the Los Angeles Kings for the second wild card in the Western Conference with 77 points.
“I guess there’s two sides to that. I’m impressed we stuck with it even though I don’t know if we played 15 good minutes,” Bednar said. “It looked like some of our guys hit the wall. We didn’t have great energy. I could tell our hearts were in it, but we just didn’t have any juice and grit to our game that we needed.”
Forty-two seconds after Soderberg gave the Avs a 2-0 lead, Boone Jenner put the Jackets on the board. Varlamov, who finished with 39 saves, gave up three more goals — two to Thomas Vanek and another to Zach Werenski — during a rough second period for the Avs.
Landeskog started their comeback with his goal at 13:26 of the third period. Mikko Rantanen and Nathan MacKinnon assisted as the Avs netted a power-play goal for the sixth consecutive game — the first time they’ve done so since Nov. 25-Dec. 3, 2009.
Barrie snapped a scoreless tie 6:55 into the game when he skated unchallenged to the net and buried a wrist shot.
Seconds later, Soderberg stunned the home crowd by lighting the lamp again. Soderberg took a pass from Blake Comeau and ripped a shot from the slot past Korpisalo.
The Jackets quickly retaliated. Jenner took a pass from Alexander Wennberg and beat Varlamov with a shot from the left circle into the top right corner at 7:49.
The Jackets pulled even at 1:19 of the second period when Vanek, acquired at the trade deadline, scored his first goal with the team on assists from Jenner and Ryan Murray.
Werenski gave the Jackets a 3-2 lead at 12:36 with his 13th goal of the season — a franchise record for a defenseman.
Vanek scored his second of the night, at even strength, with 4:08 left in the second period to give the Jackets their two-goal advantage.