Colorado Avalanche: JT Compher’s Big Night in his Hometown

Colorado Avalanche forward JT Compher recorded a three-point night, including the game-winning goal. And he did so in his hometown.

The Colorado Avalanche beat the Chicago Blackhawks 5-3, meaning they’ve now won three in a row. Unfortunately, the (hated) Minnesota Wild also won, so Colorado has not regained a playoff spot.

Anyway, the game against the Blackhawks, in Chicago, was a good one. Not that the players played their most spectacular game — a lot of the first period was downright flat and, well, goalie Semyon Varlamov faced 44 shots. So you see how that went.

Homeboy, J.T. Compher, who hails from Northbrook, Illinois, a suburb of Chicago, had himself a night. And, boy did he need one after a couple brutal games he had, but this post is about pumping Compher’s tires, so moving on.

The Colorado Avalanche has been awful on the power play lately, which is weird considering how much firepower the team has. Well, it was late in the second period, and the score was tied thanks to the Hawks scoring on the power play.

Blackhawk Slater Koekkoek went to the penalty box for slashing, and out came the Avs power play. Mikko Rantanen corralled the puck behind the Chicago goal and fed it to Compher, who was in the slot. He unleashed a beautiful wrister:

Naturally, Rantanen earned an assist on the play. Incidentally, that assist put him at the 200-point mark for his career. That goal also saw Compher tie his career-best from last season with 13.

JT wasn’t done yet, though. The unpalatable Patrick Kane tied the game a little over a minute later. Early in the third period, captain Gabriel Landeskog scored an admittedly ugly goal:

As you can see, it was Compher who fed him the pass. The Colorado Avalanche were ahead on the scoreboard again.

Unfortunately, the Blackhawks refused to die and scored on a (bogus) power play midway through the period. Well, what do you do when you need yet another go-ahead goal? You call Mr, 877-Score-Goals-Now. (Slogan courtesy of Ryan Boulding.)

The goal that ended up being the game winner was as pretty as Landeskog’s was ugly (but we don’t care because they all count for the same):

I do love me some JT on the breakaway.

Anyway, that goal has now put Compher at the 14-goal mark, which bests his career-high from last season.

Side note: Carl Soderberg scored two goals on the night. That means he passed the 20-goal mark for the first time in his career. Good on Big Ol’ Carl. That also means the Avalanche have four 20-goal scorers on their team. It’s been a loooong time since that was a fact.

It was 2006-07, in fact, with Joe Sakic, Andrew Brunette, Milan Hejduk, and Paul Stastny as the 20-goal scorers.

Anyway, no time to stay too high on JT Compher’s amazing play. The Colorado Avalanche will be right back at it all to soon as they’re already en route to Nashville to face the Predators in the second game of their back-to-back series.