Philipp Grubauer delivers as Avalanche drops Vegas to keep Presidents’ Trophy hopes alive
Goalie Philipp Grubauer carried the Avalanche on Monday night in Las Vegas, making 36 saves to keep the club alive for the West Division title and Presidents’ Trophy for the NHL’s best record.
In a less than stellar performance outside of the crease, forward J.T. Compher scored a gritty goal at 11:33 of the third period to give the Avs their first lead of the game, and they hung on behind Grubauer to defeat the Golden Knights 2-1 at T-Mobile Arena.
“Personally, it was nice to get that game and get those two points, for sure,” Grubauer said of his career-high 29th victory, two behind Tampa Bay’s Andrei Vasilevskiy for the league lead. “From a team perspective, I don’t think it was one of our best games. I think we dialed it up a notch in the last period, made the right choices, played the right way, but I think the first two were some periods to forget.”
Vegas outshot the Avs 37-21, including 15-4 in the second period. Grubauer and an excellent penalty-killing corps (3-for-3) limited the Knights to just one goal.
“Simple. Goaltending,” Avs coach Jared Bednar said of the difference in the game. “Without (Grubauer) we don’t have any chance in this one, in my opinion. Vegas was more competitive, won the bulk of the puck battles, played with more pace, better execution. Their commitment to check was strong and I didn’t think we executed what we wanted to do at all.”
He added: “Goaltending — that’s the only part of the game I liked tonight. And I’ll give our penalty kill credit. They sacrificed and blocked some shots to give ourselves a chance and Grubi did the rest of the work.”
In the Avs’ final road game, Vegas would have clinched the West Division and Presidents’ Trophy with a victory. Instead, Colorado (37-13-4) climbed to within two points of Vegas (39-14-2), with a game in hand. The Avs will win the division and the trophy by sweeping the Los Angeles Kings on Wednesday and Thursday at Ball Arena to conclude the regular season. They own the tiebreaker with a league-high 33 regulation wins; Vegas has 29.
“Next game is going to be the most important one. Obviously, great job tonight but it doesn’t matter if we don’t win the next one,” Grubauer said. “L.A., they have nothing to lose. We have to find a way to play our game again.”
Vegas closes out Wednesday at San Jose. Third-place Minnesota (35-14-5, 75 points) finishes with two games Wednesday and Thursday against the already identified No. 4 seed, the St. Louis Blues (24-20-9).
Monday night’s game was tied 1-1 after two periods despite Vegas outshooting the Avs 29-13. But Colorado scored the only goal in the middle frame, with winger Andre Burakovsky using his potent wrist shot to beat goalie Robin Lehner at 7:04.
Vegas only used 15 skaters, three fewer than normal, because of salary cap restrictions and injuries. Forward Max Pacioretty, the Knights’ second-leading scorer, and defenseman Alec Martinez were among the scratches. Martinez had played in all 53 previous games.
Vegas opened the scoring 8:11 into the game. Defenseman Alex Pietrangelo jumped on a juicy rebound from the right circle and hammered the puck past Grubauer. Minutes later, Knights forward Alex Tuch shot wide on an open-net tap-in opportunity on a 2-on-1 rush.
The Avs, now second in the league in shots-per-game (34.4), are 6-1 in their last seven games but their 21 shots on Monday is their second-lowest of the season.
“You’re not going outshoot teams every game,” Compher said. “Obviously we want to, that’s the goal — to play our style of hockey. The first two periods, for our standards, not good enough. Even the third, probably not up to our standards but we were able to squeak one out and that’s what it’s going to take in the playoffs.”
Footnotes. Top-line center and leading scorer Nathan MacKinnon returned to the lineup after missing the last two games with a lower-body injury. MacKinnon was relatively ineffective, with no points and just two shots. … Bednar said defenseman Sam Girard and forward Brandon Saad continue to skate in Denver and are candidates to return from lower-body injuries this week. Rookie defenseman Bo Byram (concussion) is also skating but his timetable is unclear. Forwards Matt Calvert (upper-body) and Logan O’Connor (lower-body) are “not in the foreseeable future for us to get back in the lineup,” Bednar said. … Forward Sampo Ranta was added to the Avs’ taxi squad from the Colorado Eagles. Ranta, 20, signed with the Avalanche after his junior year at the University of Minnesota on April 3. The Finn has six points (three goals) in 12 games with the Eagles.
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