Avalanche turn on their power, hand Canucks fifth loss in row
Nazem Kadri and Mikko Rantanen each had a goal and two assists as the Colorado Avalanche beat the Vancouver Canucks 4-2 on Wednesday night.
Cale Makar had a goal and an assist and Gabriel Landeskog added an empty-netter for the visiting Avalanche, who scored three times on the power play. Darcy Kuemper stopped 30 shots.
Tucker Poolman had a goal and an assist, and Conor Garland also scored for Vancouver, which lost its fifth straight to fall to 5-10-2. Thatcher Demko had 26 saves.
The Avalanche were 3 for 5 with the man advantage while the Canucks went scoreless on three power plays. Vancouver came into the game with the worst penalty kill in the league. It killed just 62.3 per cent of the penalties it faced across the first 16 games of the year.
Trailing 3-2 late in the third, the Canucks pulled Demko for an extra skater in a bid to score another equalizer, but instead saw Landeskog bury an empty-net shot with 10 seconds left.
The Canucks briefly took the lead 1:30 into the third when Poolman scored his first goal in a Canucks jersey.
His shot from the top of the faceoff circle hit Keumper and got caught under the goalie’s pads before trickling over the goal line to put Vancouver up 2-1.
The Canucks had little time to celebrate, though — seconds later, Alex Chiasson was called for elbowing. The ensuing penalty kill saw Demko lunge across the goalmouth before Kadri tapped a puck into the open net to knot the score at 2-2 at 2:19.
Pushing and shoving followed the goal, and both Rantanen and Vancouver forward J.T. Miller were sent to the box for roughing.
The Avalanche regained the lead at 3:12 after Vancouver’s Quinn Hughes was called for cross checking Samuel Girard. Devon Toews sent a slick pass to Makar, who unleashed a rocket from the top of the faceoff circle to make it 3-2 just 10 seconds into the power play.
BLACKHAWKS 4, KRAKEN 2 >> MarcAndre Fleury made 31 saves for his 496th career victory and Chicago won at Seattle.
Alex DeBrincat had a “Gordie Howe hat trick” — a goal, assist and fight — and Patrick Kane added a goal and an assist for Chicago, which improved to 4-0-0 under interim coach Derek King.