Colorado Avalanche: A Wild Ride And The Losing Streak Is Over

With both teams on losing streaks, the Colorado Avalanche fought for those two points and kept their spot among the top five in the Western Conference.

The Colorado Avalanche hosted the Dallas Stars for the second time this season for a not-so-friendly match-up. You’ll see: the Stars are on a losing streak (three games), and the Avs were also on a losing streak (three games as well), so both teams needed to win.

Not to mention: the Avs are currently on the third spot in the Central Division, and the Stars, well, they’re not even on the wildcard anymore. What I’m trying to say is: this game was important for both, and they fought for those points.

First period was by far the longest one, between penalties, hits to the post, and Dallas Stars’ goalie Anton Khudobin leaving the net so many times and the Avalanche not taking advantage of that. And then it happened: after former Avs player Blake Comeau was sent to the box, Gabriel Landeskog scored a Power Play goal (assisted by Nathan MacKinnon and Tyson Barrie, of course).

Remember when we talked about scoring depth? It’s still real, and Matt Calvert gave the team a two goal lead. And then the madness began. A.J Greer scored his first NHL goal only for the Stars to challenge for goalie interference. Granted: no goal.

After Stars’ Jason Dickinson was sent to the box, Carl Soderberg scored a PPG. But the Stars pulled a Nashville Predators move and challenged for goalie interference for the second time. No goal. But that’s ok: Mikko Rantanen made up for that with a goal that could not be challenged in any way.

The Stars’ turned the power up on the second period, with Ben Bishop now between the pipes. With Radek Faksa in the penalty box, Stars’ defenseman Esa Lindell scored, with Tyler Seguin breaking his scoring drought seconds later. Mattias Janmark paid a visit to the penalty box and Mikko Rantanen made the best out of the power play with his second goal of the night. Onto third period.

J.T Compher got a bad hit from Stars’ D-man Julius Honka when he smashed our boy into the boards, but he was back on the ice minutes later. Soderberg was sent to the box for high-sticking against Ben Bishop and Tyler Seguin scored again. In an unexpected turn of events, Jamie Benn tied the score and that’s when the Avalanche woke up again.

Assisted by our very own Erik Johnson, Gabriel Landeskog scored once more and then came Nathan MacKinnon with an empty netter for good measure. And so the Colorado Avalanche’s losing streak came to an end, with a final score of 6-4.

Both the Stars and the Avs went for a physical game, where we could have had a couple of fights had the refs not stopped them several times. Both teams have a tendency to take too many penalties, but the Avs made the best out of most of them (and I have to say, I’m surprised the Stars scored on the power play too).

Still, the Avalanche keep on doing that thing that gets on my nerves and can only be defined as “overconfidence”. They had a three goal lead and didn’t do much to defend it after the first period – until the Stars tied the score, and they realized there was a chance of them not winning this one. They really need to stop doing that.

Two goals revoked, three hatty watches (Landeskog, Rantanen, Seguin), and the Stars learning to not mess with our younglings or the big ones will go after you; this game was a wild ride, and the losing streak is over. Hopefully, this will bring some life (and fire) back to the Colorado Avalanche.