When the Colorado Avalanche announced that they had signed restricted free agent, Mikko Rantanen, a sigh of relief went up around the Denver area.
On Thursday night, Rantanen proved why the deal was worth the wait.
The forward struck twice in a 5-3 win over the visiting Calgary Flames.
“I can’t deny, everybody loves to score goals, especially when the team wins,” Rantanen said “It feels good. It’s already been four or five days and now we played the first game. I felt surprisingly good, but it’s probably going to take a couple of games to get fresh legs.”
Philipp Grubauer backed up the offense with 27 saves in the win.
The Flames have lost 10 straight season openers and are 0-9-1 in that skid.
“The first 10 minutes in any team’s building on their opener is always going to be that atmosphere that we had tonight,” the Flames’ Mark Giordano said. “They got a lot of momentum. Their top players got a lot of touches early. You touch the puck and it sort of carries on the rest of the game.”
Sean Monahan, Giordano and Johnny Gaudreau scored for the Flames.
“We had some moments 5-on-5, and the third period is a good example of that,” Calgary coach Bill Peters said. “That was our best period and it’s a period we stayed out of the box. We were able to get guys moving and skating, a little rhythm to the game.”
Joonas Donskoi had two strikes in the Avs’ win and J.T. Compher added a single marker.
“As soon as I watched him practice for two days (after signing his contract), I knew he was going to pick up where he left off,” Avs head coach Jared Bednar said. “He came in and practiced and it looked easy for him. He’s got a lot of confidence, he’s happy with the new contract, and we’re happy to have him back. He must have put in some good work in Switzerland for a couple weeks.”
[WATCH:Â All Flames vs. Avalanche highlights]
David Rittich made 27 saves in the loss.
“Just too many penalties we took, it’s pretty simple. It was hard to get into the groove of the game for everybody and then when your penalty killers are out there, they’re working their tails off so they’re pretty tired,” Matthew Tkachuk said after the loss. “And then guys who aren’t on the penalty kill have a hard time getting in the game. It was kind of similar for both teams.”
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