In Denver, the Colorado Avalanche pushed their point streak to nine games on Thursday with a 5-1 win over the Vegas Golden Knights.
After surrendering the first goal to Vegas, the Avs posted four in the middle frame, one in the third to get the win.
Philipp Grubauer made 18 saves for the win.
The Avs improved to 21-8-3.
“We got some timely goals and we were able to build off of that,” Colorado’s Gabriel Landeskog said. “Guys stepped up big. It was good to see [Compher] get on the board, and Cale had a beautiful goal. Overall, a good team effort. Our game starts with defensive commitment, and we go from there. We know what can create offense, and the buy-in for the last month and a bit has been really good, and we’re seeing the results from it.”
Max Pacioretty opened the scoring in the first period with his marker.
“The good news is we get to play this team again (Saturday) and we get another chance at proving ourselves here,” Pacioretty said. “We’re really upset with the way we played tonight. We have to come to the rink tomorrow ready to do the things that’s going to prepare us to play a game we’re capable of winning against a team like that.”
Vegas dropped to 22-8-1.
“We knew they were going to be good and motivated,” Vegas head coach Peter DeBoer said. “The start was a little bit of fool’s gold. We were fortunate to be up 1-0 at the end of one. I’m not sure we deserved it. Got an old-fashioned [butt]-kicking tonight.”
Joonas Donskoi got the Avs’ offense in gear second when he tie4d the game up.
“That was big, definitely,” Landeskog said. “For us, our unit, our power play wasn’t necessarily clicking tonight, but it was good to see him get one on the power play and kind of get the ice tilted that way early on in the second.”
J.T. Compher gave Colorado the lead with a goal midway through the period.
“I was just trying to play with my legs, use my speed and get the puck to the net,” Compher said. “It wasn’t a great shot by any means, it was able to squeak through. That’s the way we’re trying to play, play fast and go to the net.”
Cale Makar and Landeskog pushed the lead to 4-1 before the period ended.
“I thought it was a grind for our guys tonight,” Colorado head coach Jared Bednar said. “The Bellemare line was outstanding, the [Tyson] Jost line was also good, and we found a way to score some timely goals and check pretty hard and played with pretty good pack mentality, but the game was a little bit sloppy, and I just didn’t think we had a lot of energy.”
Pierre-Edouard Bellemare scored early in the third for Colorado to remove any suspense in the final frame.
Marc-Andre Fleury made 27 saves in the loss.
“I don’t think you can move on when you lose a game 5-1,” Vegas’ Mark Stone said. “You have to sit down and look at it and see what went wrong. At first glance, kind of got out-competed. The first period was pretty level. Take three penalties in the first [10] minutes of the second period, lose flow, lost a lot of our top guys sitting. The penalty kill did a great job, and they get a lucky goal. Just took a lot of flow out of the game, and they completely dominated us for the last 15 minutes of that period.”
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