Avalanche easily buries Canucks
DENVER — The Avalanche showcased its most complete performance of the young season Thursday night in a 7-1 home victory over the Vancouver Canucks.
Colorado’s scoring onslaught produced a season-high seven goals from Valeri Nichushkin, Gabe Landeskog, Mikko Rantanen, Logan O’connor, Darren Helm, Devon Toews and J.T Compher. Goalie Darcy Kuemper carried a shutout into the third period and finished with 22 saves.
The team didn’t escape completely unscathed, however. Defenseman Bo Byram left in the first period after taking an apparent elbow to the head and he did not return.
Colorado (5-5-1) hosts the San Jose Sharks on Saturday night. The Avalanche has won back-to-back games just once so far this season. But its Thursday performance suggests positive momentum is building despite the multi-week injury absence of star forward Nathan Mackinnon.
Nichushkin scored his first goal of the year in his return from a nearly monthlong absence (undisclosed injury). The Russian got rewarded crashing the net following a Nazem Kadri power-play shot attempt and the Avs went ahead just three minutes into the game. Their goals kept coming.
Colorado extended the lead moments later when defenseman Cale Makar — in his first game back from an upper-body injury — lasered the puck to Landeskog in the corner for an easy scoring chance. Then Byram forced a turnover in the Vancouver zone and Rantanen capitalized with a rocket past Canucks’ goaltender Jaroslav Halak. The Avs led 3-0 with 9:50 left in the opening period.