Avs extend win streak to 6 games behind Francouz
N A SHVILLE, TENN.» With an injury-depleted lineup, the Avalanche continues to roll in clubrecord fashion.
On Saturday at Bridgestone Arena, a fortunate call on a disallowed goal helped Colorado defeat the Nashville Predators 3-2 and extend its winning streak to six games, points streak to seven and road winning streak to a team-record eight.
The Avalanche (39-18-7), again playing without four key forwards, had an Nhl-most 22 road victories and a club-record 11 victories in February.
“You look at a team like Pittsburgh. I feel like every year this is what they do. They have a very depleted lineup at times and whoever is in the lineup, they keep winning,” said Avs captain Gabe Landeskog, who opened the scoring with his 18th goal of the season. “We’re not making a big stink out of who’s out, who’s hurt and for how long. We’re just focusing on the guys we have and not trying to come up with any excuses, and we’ve been good at finding different ways to win hockey games.”
Landeskog and Martin Kaut scored within 2:15 late in the second period for 2-0 lead, and Colorado persevered through heavy
Preds pressure down the stretch. Nashville’s Viktor Arvidsson scored on a breakaway with 5:20 to play, and the Predators had a disallowed goal with 3:14 to go because of goalie interference. Colin Blackwell was escorted to the penalty box after colliding with goalie Pavel Francouz as Dante Fabbro’s shot went in the net.
Preds fans argued that Blackwell was pushed into Francouz by Avs defenseman Nikita Zadorov and video replay supported that claim. But the play and the call weren’t reviewable, so the Avs killed some time on the power play before getting a 190-foot empty-net goal from Erik Johnson for a 3-1 lead.
Nashville’s Calle Jarnkrok made it a 3-2 game with two seconds remaining.
Francouz said referees made the right call on the disallowed goal when all he knew was getting runover by Blackwell. “I was just trying to make a save and all of a sudden the guy runs me over. Great call from the refs, for sure,” he said.
The Avs continued on without key injured forwards Mikko Rantanen, Nazem Kadri and Matt Calvert and also played without Andre Burakovsky for the third time in the last four games.
Burakovsky, who played 14:52 on Friday when Colorado began its trip with a 3-2 win at Carolina, missed two previous games because of sickness.
Rantanen, Kadri and Calvert will remain out for another two weeks or more — which will probably continue to keep Kaut, who was recalled from the minors last week, in the big-league lineup.
Francouz improved to 6-0 since opening-night starting goalie Philipp Grubauer was lost indefinitely with a lower-body injury.
“It shows you the strength of the team. We’re a pretty strong team,” Francouz said. “We can (win) at home, we can (win) on the road. We can finish tough games against tough opponents.”