Avalanche steamrolls the struggling Kings
Five weeks ago the Colorado Avalanche lost a game to the lowly Chicago Blackhawks and Devon Toews teed off on some of his teammates after it was over. The Avs have put together their best extended run of play since.
Two nights ago, the Los Angeles Kings lost a game to the lowly Buffalo Sabres and Drew Doughty went on a Toews-esque rant. If there was ever a game where the Avs might get caught peeking ahead to their forthcoming extended break, a contest against an extremely motivated, desperate team was it.
The result was further proof of Colorado’s championship credentials.
Logan O’connor scored twice, Nathan Mackinnon continued to dominate at a level few players can reach and the Avalanche rolled into the break with a 5-1 victory Friday night at Ball Arena. The Avs are now 133-1 since that sluggish night in Chicago, while the Kings lost for the 13th time in 15 games.
If the Kings were hoping for a fast start, O’connor squashed that with a pair of first-period goals. He now has eight goals in his past nine games, and 13 for the season — his previous career high was nine.
O’connor’s second was a vintage playoff-style goal. The Kings are known as a defense-first outfit and tailor their system to make teams play dump-and-chase hockey. That is the antithesis of how the Avs typically like to play, but their “identity line” showed that is in the arsenal as well.
The Avs dumped the puck at the center red line. Ross Colton forechecked Doughty into a turnover. Miles Wood collected it, then snapped a pass to O’connor for a snipe from the left circle at 14:55 of the period.
Mackinnon scored at 18:30 to give the Avs a 3-0 lead and continue his run at both the Hart and Art Ross trophies. He added an assist on a third-period goal, and now leads the NHL with 84 points in 49 games, one more than Tampa Bay’s Nikita Kucherov as they continue to jostle back and forth at the top of the league standings. Mackinnon has 41 points in his past 19 games, while Kucherov has 36 in that span.
He has at least one point in 25 straight home games to start the season. Mackinnon tied Bobby Orr for the second-longest such streak to start the season. Wayne Gretzky holds the record, having scored in 40 straight home games in 1988-89.
There was one point in this game where the Kings had a chance to make it competitive. Kevin Fiala scored to make it 3-1 early in the second period, then the Avs did very little during a four-minute power play. Fiala came out of the box and had a breakaway, but Alexandar Georgiev stoned him twice.
Josh Manson scored on a give-and-go with Andrew Cogliano less than a minute later, and then Cale Makar scored a power-play goal off Doughty just 29 seconds into the third to end any doubt.
Even when the score was 5-1, the Avs had a frantic sequence where Joel Kiviranta blocked a shot, Georgiev made two saves and then Samuel Girard saved a sure goal with another block. It was just another moment where the locked-in Avalanche showed their struggling visitors what it looks like when times are good.
The Kings will continue to search for answers while a once-promising season continues to trend in the wrong direction. The Avs look like they’re ready for the playoffs to start tomorrow.
Veteran Parise signed to one-year deal
The Avalanche bolstered its forward depth Friday by signing free-agent forward Zach Parise to a one-year contract.
Parise has played the past two seasons for the New York Islanders. The 39-yearold wing had 21 goals and 34 points last season but did not sign with anyone during the offseason. The deal is worth $825,000, but is prorated for the rest of the season, The Denver Post confirmed. It includes no performance bonuses, according to Frank Seravalli of Daily Faceoff.
“We are excited to add Zach to our group,” Avalanche general manager Chris Macfarland said in a statement released by the team. “Over his impressive NHL career, Zach has always been a highly competitive and driven forward who is hard to play against. We look forward to adding his veteran presence to our locker room.”
The move could help the Avs replace Tomas Tatar, who was signed late in the offseason but had one goal and nine points in 27 games before being traded to Seattle.
Parise was a first-round pick by the New Jersey Devils in 2003. He has played for the Devils, Minnesota Wild and Islanders in his 18-year career. He has 429 goals in 1,224 career NHL games, and 37 goals in 111 career Stanley Cup Playoff contests.
He played for the United States in the 2010 and 2014 Winter Olympics. Parise was teammates with Avs defenseman Jack Johnson at the 2010 games in Vancouver and captained the American team at the 2014 games in Sochi, Russia.