Avalanche rallies past Kraken to claim fifth consecutive victory

Avalanche coach Jared Bednar calls catchup hockey losing hockey. But lately, his team has had extraordinary success playing from behind.

The slow-starting Avs on Monday night used another comeback to win its fifth consecutive game and extend its club-record home winning streak to 12 games.

The losing goalie: Philipp Grubauer, who took more money to sign with the expansion Seattle Kraken in the offseason. The German was typically the Avs’ No. 1 goalie over the past three seasons but chose to move on as an unrestricted free agent.

Grubauer’s former teammates rallied from a 3-1 deficit to defeat the Kraken 4-3 and sweep the regular-season series.

Colorado’s entire five-game winning streak has featured comebacks.

“Our team is showing a lot of character and maturity in coming back. That’s what great teams do,” said center Nazem Kadri, who scored the winning goal late in the third period. “These types of situations, being down and staying patient… Love the maturity.”

Defenseman Devon Toews tied it 3-3 at 11:43 of the third period and Kadri blistered a wrist shot past Grubauer at 14:17. Toews pinched in from the point and had Cale Makar’s shot carom off his skate and behind Grubauer. Officials ruled it was not a distinct kicking motion so the goal stood.

Kadri beat Grubauer with perhaps his best goal of the season — a near-side snipe beside the goalie’s right ear.

“Had some room to walk in and I was able to find that short side,” Kadri said.

Grubauer, who also allowed two goals to forward Nicolas Aube-Kubel, was facing the Avs for the second time as a member of the Kraken. He allowed three goals in relief duty on Nov. 19 in Seattle, where Colorado won 7-3.

“We’ll take the win but there are certainly some things that we can look at, that we have to learn from, and I don’t know if it was as much about our start but the second frame was not great,” Bednar said. “I’ve liked what we’ve done when we’ve got down. We talked about it after the second period.”

Colorado outshot the Kraken 14-8 in the final 20 minutes.

The Avs (22-8-2) played without left wing and team captain Gabe Landeskog, who had two consecutive positive COVID tests and landed on the protocol absence list Monday morning. Landeskog, who has points in his last 14 games, was named the NHL’s No. 1 star of the week before he was ruled out. He was Colorado’s hottest offensive player, with four goals and seven points in his last three games.

Seattle (10-20-4), which is on a 0-5-1 skid and hadn’t previously played since Jan. 1 because of COVID postponements, jumped to a 3-1 lead in the second period and took a 3-2 advantage into the third. Avs goalie Pavel Francouz, making his second start and third appearance of the season, wasn’t playing poorly but the bounces went against him and he allowed three goals on just 18 shots (.833%).

Kraken goals by Marcus Johansson and Colin Blackwell were deflections from the goalmouth and teammate Jared McCann scored from a bad angle against the sideboards by just throwing the puck on net through traffic.

Aube-Kubel gave the Avs a 1-0 lead early in the first period by finishing a tic-tac-toe passing action with linemates Alex Newhook and Logan O’Connor. Aube-Kubel got the Avs within 3-2 late in the second period by tapping in a rebound off a shot from Andre Burakovsky.

“We’re a really good team,” Aube-Kubel said. “We’re climbing the standings now.”

Grubauer fell to 7-14-4. He stopped 31 of 35 shots in front of Avs fans who frequently screamed out the familiar “Gruuu” when he made a save.

“I wasn’t sure if they were ‘boos’ or ‘Gruus’ coming back here,” he said. “But if it was a ‘Gruuu,’ I definitely appreciate that.”

Footnotes. The Avs, who trail Western Conference-leading Nashville by two points but with four games in hand, were scheduled to depart for Music City after the game. They visit the Predators in a single-game trip Tuesday, beginning the first of two consecutive-night games this week. Colorado is scheduled to begin a home-and-away set with the Arizona Coyotes on Friday in Denver. However, the Coyotes had five players and two coaches land on the COVID absence list Monday and more positive tests could potentially postpone those games.

Source: Read Full Article