Avalanche rout ANaheim, 8-2 Five goal third sends Avs over Ducks

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In Denver, the Avalanche scored five times in the third period to turn a tight 3-1 affair with the Anaheim Ducks into an 8-2 win on Wednesday night.

Alexandar Georgiev made 15 saves in the win.

The Avs improved to 10-5-0.

“That’s the way I want us to play. We’ve been waiting for it and waiting for it, and it just hasn’t come out of our team yet,” Colorado coach Jared Bednar said. “We’re in a fortunate spot tonight, right? They played last night. They’re coming in a little bit tired. We’re rested and ready to go and we’re coming off a good game, so I expected us to have a good game tonight. We got it. Wasn’t perfect, but it was pretty good.”

Valeri Nichushkin hit for a double for the Avs in the win.

Colorado took a 2-0 lead in the first period on goals from Samuel Girard  at 6:40 of the first, and Nichushkin’s first at 12:40.

“Val’s a guy that’s been working at [deflections], and he watches a lot of video with the power play especially,” Bednar said. “So he’s put some effort into that over the last couple of years, and obviously tonight, that’s sort of a perfect case scenario. He gets one on the 5-on-5, holding the net front on the deflection from Toews’ shot, I think, and then the power-play one. Had one the other night as well, so it’s certainly coming for him, which is nice to see.”

Anaheim got one back on a strike by Sam Carrick with 33 seconds left in the period to make it 2-0 headed to the middle frame.

“It was just a great point shot from Gudas. We know he can shoot the puck, and I just got my stick on it,” Carrick said. “I think that’s one thing we can do more of, is throwing pucks on net and getting sticks on them and maybe some more deflection goals and rebound goals. So, just got to find different ways to score.”

The Ducks dropped to 9-7-0.

“Val’s a guy that’s been working at [deflections], and he watches a lot of video with the power play especially,” Bednar said. “So he’s put some effort into that over the last couple of years, and obviously tonight, that’s sort of a perfect case scenario. He gets one on the 5-on-5, holding the net front on the deflection from Toews’ shot, I think, and then the power-play one. Had one the other night as well, so it’s certainly coming for him, which is nice to see.”

The Avs pushed the lead to 3-1 in the middle frame off a marker from Fredrik Olofsson at 14:33.

The offense was on open throttle in the third.

Ross Colton scored at 3:53 of the stanza for a 4-1 advantage to the Avs.

“A lot of goals. A lot of guys got on the board tonight, and defensively, we did a good job,” Colorado’s Andrew Cogliano said. “We’re not expecting maybe to score every night, but we got to create energy and we got to have two lines in the bottom six that are tough to play against and can play against any team and any line.”

Nichushkin hit for his double at 5:51 for a 5-1 lead.

“He’s in a good spot right now,” The Avs’ Cale Makar said. “I’m going to try and feed him pucks whenever he’s there.”

Midway through the third the Ducks scored on a Max Jones  shot to make it 5-2.

“We’ve been playing some good hockey as of late, so can’t dwell on this one too much,” Carrick said. “Figure out what went wrong and move on to the next game.”

Joel Kiviranta, who had three points on the night, scored at 13:13 for a 6-2 advantage.

“Third period, it was just one shift when like everything bounced perfectly, and it worked,” Kiviranta said. “I was actually hoping to get a change after that second one. Little too far for me.”

Cogliano ballooned the lad to 7-2  21 seconds later.

Devon Toews scored at 15:18 for the 8-2 final.

Lukas Dostal made 30 saves in the loss.