Avs flatten Blues

In Denver, Nathan MacKinnon  scored twice, once on the power play, in a 3-2 win for the Colorado Avalanche over the visiting St Louis Blues, on Friday night.

The Avs were 2-for-6 on the man advantage.

“I thought we had a little bit of a slow start,” MacKinnon said. “We held the lead throughout the game, which is important. Obviously, it’s a really good team, they’re desperate. But it’s great to see [Johansson] get his first win with the Avs, and he looked great tonight.”

Jonas Johansson made 25 saves to get the win for Colorado.

“Great feeling, big points for us, and personally it was really fun to get the first one in the Avs jersey,” Johansson, said..

Mike Hoffman scored for the Blues.

“We had some opportunities to put the puck in the net, we just didn’t capitalize,” Hoffman said. “We had some opportunities on the power play. It’s a good hockey club over there and they made it tough for us to even get the puck. They held on to it a lot of the time. If we don’t have it, we can’t score.”

Brandon Saad gave the Ava a 1-0 lead in the first period with his 11th of the season.

“I’m really happy for Jonas,” Colorado head coach Jared Bednar said. “He’s been battling for quite some time, he’s put some hard work with us just in the past couple weeks sort of trying to refine his game and get sharp again. They score on their first shot, which mentally is not easy, but he came up huge even in the first period. After he gave up that goal on his first shot, he stops a breakaway where we have a big breakdown. Our team will gain confidence in him as he continues to play.”

David Peron added a marker in the third period after the Avs had taken a 3-1 lead.

“It was a pretty good hockey game, we took too many penalties tonight,” Blues head coach Craig Berube said. “We gave up the two (power-play) goals. They’re stoppable; it shouldn’t happen. We’ve got to defend that better, and [Binnington] has got to defend it better too. It’s a pretty good game, it’s a close game, we hit three posts tonight, I think. We did a lot of good things, but in the end what matters is the outcome, and we’re on the wrong side of it.”

Jordan Binnington made 36 saves in the loss.