Grubauer notches career-best shutout streak against Kings
Behind a stellar afternoon from the second line (two goals, five points) and another strong showing from goalie Philipp Grubauer (27 saves), the Avalanche defeated the Los Angeles Kings 4-1 on Sunday to improve to 4-1-1 on its nine-game homestand.
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Grubauer’s brilliance. Grubauer blanked the Kings through two periods and ran his career-best shutout streak to 132:24 until the Kings scored with Avs forward Gabe Landeskog accidentally screening him on a long shot from the point at 6:07 of the third period.
Grubauer now has 15 wins in 22 starts, and his 51 career victories with the Avalanche have him tied with Craig Anderson for fifth-most in club history.
Among NHL goalies who have played at least 18 games, Grubauer stands third in goalsagainst average (1.91) and fourth in save percentage (.923).
Shots leaders. The Avs outshot L.A. 41-28 and lead the NHL in both shots-per-game (34.1) and average shots-allowed (25.0).
They have a plus-237 shot difregular ferential, by far the best in the NHL ahead of No. 2 Montreal at plus-108.
Five-for-5. The Avalanche killed off all five of the Kings’ power plays. Colorado is now 69-for-79 (87.3%) on the season, second in the NHL behind the Boston Bruins (89.4%).
The Avalanche had the first power play Sunday but the Kings had each of the last five. The large difference in man-advantage opportunities led to depth forwards Tyson Jost (18:07) and Logan O’Connor (15:10) playing season-high minutes. O’Connor had a game-high five shots.
Points. The Avs won their third consecutive game and have now produced points in six of their last seven. Approaching the midway point of the 56-game season, the Avs (34 points) climbed six points ahead of the Kings for the playoff cut.
Depth on display. Colorado on Sunday again played without six injured regulars who would otherwise be in the lineup, and four of them are on the mend and could return this week. Forward J.T. Compher and defensemen Cale Makar, Bo Byram and Conor Timmins have impressively been replaced by O’Connor, Jacob MacDonald, Dan Renouf and Greg Pateryn.
The replacements might be as good or better defensively than the regulars, and it has shown. This team is nothing if not deep.