Nathan MacKinnon hat trick powers 6-3 win as Avalanche takes 2-0 series lead over Blues – The Denver Post

An early fight from team captain and Game 1 hero Gabe Landeskog didn’t need to get the Avalanche going Wednesday night in Game 2. Landeskog’s massive check on his first shift did the job.

The Avs again followed their leader at Ball Arena — scoring 35 seconds into the game right after Landeskog crushed St. Louis captain Ryan O’Reilly behind the Blues’ net — and built a three-goal lead before holding on to win 6-3 and take a 2-0 series lead in the first-round, best-of-seven series.

Avs star center Nathan MacKinnon finished with a hat trick and four points, while Landeskog had two assists.

The Blues outplayed the Avs for much of the second and third periods and got within 3-2 with a power-play goal during Nazem Kadri’s check-to-the-head major at 10:02 of the final frame. But MacKinnon answered with his second goal of the game with 4:35 to play to make it 4-2.

St. Louis’ Mike Hoffman scored on the next shift to turn it back into a thriller, but the Avs’ Brandon Saad got the hosts back up by two goals with an empty-netter with 2:09 remaining. Then MacKinnon completed his hat trick with an empty-net goal with 11.9 seconds left.

Landeskog, who had a fight, a goal and two assists in the 4-1 Game 1 victory, didn’t have a point in the first period Wednesday, but he played a role in two goals and had a team-high four shots as Colorado led 2-0 after 20 minutes. The goals came from Joonas Donskoi and MacKinnon, and Donskoi scored his second 3:14 into the second period as Colorado built a 3-0 lead.

Donskoi’s goals came off redirections, the second off his torso from MacKinnon’s long wrist shot. MacKinnon’s shot on the Avs’ first power-play goal went through the legs of Blues defenseman Robert Bortuzzo as well as Landeskog’s.

Donskoi’s first goal came before some of the 7,739 spectators got comfortable in their seats. Right after Landeskog gained his feet from the big hit on O’Reilly, Avs defenseman Ryan Graves fired a slap shot from the point and Donskoi redirected it past goalie Jordan Binnington with his stick.

Avs goalie Philipp Grubauer made 32 saves and he did not have to defend a St. Louis power play through two periods because his teammates didn’t commit a penalty. However, the Avs got into trouble 6:30 into the third period when Kadri was issued a five-minute major and match penalty for a hit on Blues defenseman Justin Faulk.

St. Louis scored one power-play goal during the major, with Brayden Schenn cashing in on a rebound off a shot from Tyler Bozak.

The Blues first solved Grubauer late in the second period when fourth-line winger Sammy Blais threw the puck on Grubauer from behind the goal line and it caromed in off his pads. St. Louis controlled much of the play in the middle frame, outshooting the Avs 14-9, and gained momentum during Kadri’s costly penalty.

The Blues have the only three players currently on the NHL’s COVID protocol absence list, including regular-season leading scorer David Perron, and that number stayed at three after some anxious hours for the team and the league Wednesday afternoon.

Hours after general manager Doug Armstrong said in a statement he believed the league’s testing could be flawed after multiple Blues players were held out of the morning skate, he was proven correct when the NHL cleared those players to play in Game 2.

In a statement, the league acknowledged “certain test results” involving the Blues and Vegas Golden Knights came back positive, but it was ultimately deemed those were false positive tests.

Among the players who missed the morning skate were goalie Jordan Binnington and wingers Vladimir Tarasenko and Jaden Schwartz.

Footnote. Both teams put out the same lineups from Game 1. St. Louis, however, tweaked its top two lines, sending Jaden Schwartz to the second line and moving Jordan Kyrou up to the first. The Blues’ top line, led by O’Reilly, was minus-8 in the series opener.

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