Well, shoot: Gabe did, firing winner
Before becoming the cohero of the game Saturday afternoon, Gabe Landeskog played heroic hockey at the Pepsi Center.
The Avalanche left wing and captain produced a team-high eight shots in regulation and overtime, and the only reason he didn’t have at least three goals was because of the stellar goaltending of Marc-andre Fleury of the Vegas Golden Knights.
Fleury (29 saves) was fabulous to begin a home-andhome set between the teams. But in this game — yet another dubbed “the biggest of the season” to date for the hosts — it’s highly doubtful he was better than his counterpart, Avs goalie Semyon Varlamov (39 saves).
Landeskog and Varlamov were the game’s two best players in Colorado’s 2-1 shootout victory that enhanced the Avs’ playoff posture with seven remaining regular-season games.
Landeskog scored the only shootout goal after Varlamov made three saves in his crease. The Knights’ David Perron, Erik Haula and Jonathan Marchessault were stopped by
Varlamov, and the Avs’ Nathan Mackinnon and Mikko Rantanen shot high and off the post, respectively, at the other end.
“Varly made it easier on me for saving all three,” said Landeskog, who beat Fleury with a low wrist shot. “After I see Varly save the third one, that takes a little bit of pressure off me and I just go out and try to win the game for us.”
The result boosted the Avs’ total points to 90, tied with Minnesota for third in the Central Division but still putting them in the first of two Western Conference wild-card slots because the Wild has played two fewer games. Among the teams on the outside looking in at the playoff picture, Colorado leads St. Louis by three points and Dallas by six, but the Blues had a game in hand heading into their contest at Columbus on Saturday night.
If the season ended Sunday, the Avs would be the No. 7 seed and play No. 2 Vegas in a first-round Western Conference playoff series.
“We’re not going to get ahead of ourselves,” Landeskog said. “We know we have seven games left to polish up things and ultimately get wins and points. We’re going to need all of them. So we’re going to stay within the process like we talked about all season long.”
The MGM Line — Mackinnon, Gabe and Mikko — combined for 15 shots. “They were good,” Avalanche coach Jared Bednar said of the trio, which is centered by Mackinnon. “I thought Fleury was really good.”
Marchessault tied it 1-1 at 1:15 of the third period, using a brilliant wrist shot from the right circle to beat Varlamov inside the near post. Marchessault scored just after Fleury made a spectacular save on Landeskog’s attempted tap-in after receiving a circle-to-circle pass from Mackinnon.
The Avs had an excellent chance to regain the lead when Blake Comeau appeared to have a breakaway against Fleury, but the goalie tried to beat Comeau to a loose puck in the high slot. Comeau gained possession and skated around the diving Fleury, but he lost his balance and couldn’t deposit the puck in the open net.
“It was a fun hockey game. I thought both teams played really well,” Bednar said. “Back and forth, a little bit of everything. The goalies were really good. It was hard to create chances, but the game had really good pace to it. It was tight-checking, a fun hockey game. I thought our fans were awesome. The building was engaged. Both teams’ players were engaged.”
The Avs took a 1-0 lead at 13:52 of the first period when Carl Soderberg beat Fleury with a high wrist shot off a pretty passing play with J.T. Compher and Alex Kerfoot. Soderberg had missed the two previous games because of an illness.
Colorado will practice Sunday before departing for Las Vegas, where they play the Golden Knights on Monday at T-mobile Arena.