Avalanche hold off Oilers for wild victory in Game 1

DENVER — In a frenetic game that featured 14 goals, Colorado and Edmonton players came away with the same thought — defense can’t be so optional.

J.T. Compher scored twice, Cale Makar had a goal and two assists and the Avalanche held off the Oilers 8-6 on Tuesday night in a fast-paced, no-lead-feltsafe Game 1 of the Western Conference final.

The goal-after-goal-after-goal routine had Hall of Famer Wayne Gretzky — the greatest scorer of all time — pleading on the TV broadcast for a little more “D.” The game is tied for 10th highest-scoring playoff game in NHL history, according to the league.

“There’s lots to clean up,” said Compher, whose team matched a franchise record for most goals in a playoff game. “We don’t want to play the game that we played tonight. We want to be tighter defensively.”

Even Colorado’s fourgoal lead in the second period hardly felt secure in a matchup between the two highest-scoring teams in the postseason — and the win wasn’t in hand until Gabriel Landeskog’s empty-net goal with 21.4 seconds remaining.

Not only were there goals galore, but both teams needed to use backup goaltenders in a frenzied second period: Mike Smith was pulled after giving up six goals and Darcy Kuemper left with an upper-body injury (coach Jared Bednar didn’t have an update after the game).

This was a matchup billed as a showdown between stars Nathan Mackinnon and Connor Mcdavid and they delivered. Mackinnon had a goal and an assist for Colorado, and Mcdavid a goal and two assists for Edmonton.

But it was the supporting casts that produced big time.

Nazem Kadri, Mikko Rantanen and Andrew Cogliano also scored for the Avalanche, who have a 19-6 series record when taking the first game of a best-of-seven since relocating to Denver. Twelve Avs recorded at least a point and six had multi-point games.

Evander Kane, Zach Hyman, Ryan Mcleod, Derek Ryan and Ryan Nugent-hopkins added goals for the Oilers. Hyman has scored in six straight postseason games to tie the team mark set by Esa Tikkanen in the 1990 playoffs. Thirteen Oilers had at least a point.

Edmonton and Colorado scored six times over a 6:43 span — nearly a goal a minute. And the opening two periods saw 11 total goals. At times, it looked more like an All-star Game rather than a conference final.

Game 2 is Thursday.