Sunny Outcome for the Colorado Avalanche Against the Florida Panthers

“We’re sniffing right now, and we can smell eighth place.” — Gabriel Landeskog

The Colorado Avalanche headed south to Sunrise, Florida, to meet the Florida Panthers in the BB&T Center. It was the second and final meeting for the two teams. The Panthers took the last game, early in the season, when Luongo earned a shutout.

That’s not what happened tonight. The Colorado Avalanche won the game 4-2.

Defensemen Trade Goals

The game started in front of a thin crowd. There were more empty seats than full in the lower bowl of the arena.

Scoring also started early, in the Colorado Avalanche’s favor. Avalanche defenseman Tyson Barrie scored just over two minutes into the game. It was his fourth of the season, and… well, let’s just say it had had been awhile since Barrie had scored. It was the Avalanche’s first shot on goal.

Avalanche captain Gabriel Landeskog got called for tripping, and less than a minute later, Brad Stuart got called for the same. With the two sitting awkwardly in the sin bin, the Panthers went on a 5-on-3.

And they scored. Luckily, it was just as Landeskog was coming out of the penalty box, so their penalties were over, but the Panthers had tied the game on a goal from first-overall rookie Aaron Ekblad.

The Colorado Avalanche had vowed to come out stronger in this game, and they did do that. There were a couple sloppy places, but the first period of the game against the Panthers was better than their previous two starts.

During the first intermission, Barrie had some insights:

“They were outshooting us 8-1 at one point. They had a couple power plays early, which contributed. But we’re making the effort, working through some stuff that we’ve got to. There’s a lot of belief in the team, a lot of leadership. We’re pressing hard.”

Penalty Period

The officials got even more involved in the game in the second period. They started calling everything they saw. It started with a spearing by Cody McLeod. Luckily, just half a minute later that penalty kill was cut short by a Jimmy Hayes interference penalty on Ryan O’Reilly.

Nathan MacKinnon was working the puck in front of Luongo. That drew a penalty when Florida skater Sean Bergenheim hooked MacKinnon.

The Avs had a brief 5-on-3 power play, but they failed to capitalize on it. They also failed to capitalize on the ensuing 5-on-4 power play.

Nathan MacKinnon looked especially good in the period. His line worked hard. And, finally, it paid off. The line worked so hard in front of the net in front of Florida goalie Roberto Luongo, and, at last, captain Gabriel Landeskog wristed the puck past Luongo. The Avs were up 2-1.

Unfortunately, the lead didn’t last long. Just 20 seconds later Florida skater Aleksander Barkov tipped the puck in past Colorado goalie Semyon Varlamov.

Late in the period, Matt Duchene took a high stick in the face that did some damage, and the Florida Panthers took a penalty. Of course, the two weren’t related. The referees, who had been calling everything but the kitchen sink, didn’t call the high stick.

Luckily, they did call Florida skater Dave Bolland for tripping. With under a minute to go in the period, the Avalanche went on the power play.

Landeskog also had some insight on their current situation:

“We’ve got nothing to lose here. We can’t look back over the last 41 games. We’ve got to get going. We’re sniffing right now, and we can smell eighth place.”

Boot on the Throat

The Avalanche looked tight in the third period. They may not have played all 60 minutes of the game, but they played at least a solid 45, 50. That’s a big improvement over the 20 to 30 of previous games.

The Avalanche got their final go-ahead goal, and it was on the power play. Brian Campbell was in the box for high-sticking Dennis Everberg. Head coach Patrick Roy put out his best players on the first unit: Matt Duchene, Jarome Iginla, Erik Johnson, Gabriel Landeskog and Nathan MacKinnon. They got a couple shots on net, but no dice.

It wasn’t until the second unit went out, comprised of Ryan O’Reilly, Alex Tanguay, Max Talbot, Nick Holden and Cody McLeod that the magic happened. At first it looked like McLeod tipped in Holden’s shot, but the goal got attributed to Holden in the end. As of that moment, two of the three Avalanche goals had come from defensemen.

And the Avs were up 3-2.

The Florida Panthers got desperate. However, after Varlamov was called on to make some important saves, the Avs shut them down. As the game went past the five-minute mark, the Avs just kept pressing the Panthers back out of the zone.

With just 1 1/2 minutes left in the game, Panthers head coach Gerard Gallant pulled Luongo for the extra attacker. There was some real pressure for a minute. However, as soon as Jarome Iginla got the puck, he skated it out of the zone and shot it at the empty net. With just a few seconds left in the game, the Avalanche had taken a 4-2 lead. They maintained it.

The Avs are now 1-1-1 on the road and no worse than three points behind the eighth playoff spot.