In Denver, the Tampa Bay Lightning’s Andrei Vasilevskiy made 43 saves in a 4-3 win over the Avalanche after penalties on Tuesday night.
Vladislav Namestnikov‘s goal in the fifth of the third period tried the game, 3-3, and was enough to force extra time, which solved nothing.
Steven Stamkos was the lone striker in the skills competition for the deciding goal.
“There’s no revenge wins. It’s a new season,” said Stamkos. “We know the quality of team that they are. It’s a different year. That’s how we’ve always built on the previous year, and we know the success that we’ve had, we know the success they’ve had. But different players, different circumstances, so there’s no extra motivation because of what happened last year. It’s just we want to win hockey games and get as many points as we can.”
The Avs took a 1-0 lead with just 50 seconds gone in the first period on a marker from Artturi Lehkonen.
“You never want that,” Stamkos said. “[Vasilevskiy] gives us a chance to win every night. The first two periods, they were better than us, and he kept us in it. The third period, I thought we were the better team, and we’re able to get a point and then anything can happen in OT and in the shootout.”
Colorado extended the lead to 2-0 at 6:21 of the middle frame on a strike by Nathan MacKinnon.
Tampa’s Nikita Kucherov scored in the middle frame, and Anthony Cirelli scored with 26 seconds gone in the third stanza to get the Blots even at 2-2.
“We had a little stern talk with the boys after the second,” Tampa Bay coach Jon Cooper said. “We felt the game was obviously winnable. It was within reach, but the scoring chances we’d given up in the first two periods, it was just not acceptable against a team like them. We hung in there and [were] fortunate to get two points.”
The Avalanche dropped to 28-19-5.
“The goals that we gave up weren’t necessarily that they were on a big push,” Colorado coach Jared Bednar said. “We just made some mistakes and gave up some chances. So, we’ll look at it, review it, show it, and learn from it. We forced them into some mistakes too and had some really good chances.
“Tonight, we did a better job of scoring on some of our chances, and I think it was a more complete game tonight.”
Colorado reclaimed the lead with 2:03 gone in the third on a goal by Denis Malgin.
“I thought we had some opportunities at 2-0 to stretch the lead out to three,” Bednar said. “We didn’t capitalize on them; Vasilevskiy makes some saves. Overall, [it was a] hard-fought hockey game.”
Alexandar Georgiev made 32 saves in the Avs loss.
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