In Elmont, the Colorado Avalanche held a 5-1 lead in the third period, and then nearly yacked up the lead to the New York Islanders.
For the Isles, they simply ran out of time in a 5-4 loss to the Avs, on Monday night.
The game was tied, 1-1, entering the third period when the Avs hit for four straight and a 5-1 lead.
Colorado improved to 41-11-5.
“I thought those guys led the way for sure,” Colorado coach Jared Bednar said. “We were talking this morning about how Cale hadn’t scored in a while, but both of those guys, not just their shots, but just real good awareness. If they had a shot, they took it. They were dangerous on the interior of the ice, and if they didn’t like it, they were dishing it off to someone else who was putting themselves in a scoring position. … They were real dangerous tonight.”
Nathan MacKinnon got the third period outburst going for the Avs, his scored made it 2-1 for Colorado.
J.T. Compher, Cale Makar pushed the lead to 4-1.
“Going into the third, we felt like we had the momentum,” Makar said. “We were working hard and forechecking and the forwards were getting pucks low to high, and we were just trying to get pucks to the net. It just started clicking for us there. We got a couple really good face-off wins and we were able to put it in the back of the net.”
Devon Toews extended the 5-1 to give the Avs what seemed be, a comfortable lead.
Pavel Francouz made 32 saves. in the Colorado win.
“I loved our game from the drop of the puck until the 5-1 lead, it’s that simple,” Bednar said. “I thought we were doing a great job getting back above pucks, ‘D’ gaps were great, turning pucks in transition quickly the whole night, dangerous on the offensive side of things.
“They made a strong push following our push at the start of the third, so it ends up closer than what we would have liked for sure, but lots of positives to take out of that game for me.”
Anders Lee hit for a double, including the game’s first goal in the opening frame.
“Without our goaltender, it could have been ugly,” New York coach Barry Trotz said. “It was ugly for a while. I thought ‘Varly’ was the best player on the ice for both teams.”
Lee’s second marker cut the Avs lead to 5-2.
The Isles dropped to 21-24-8.
Casey Cizikas scored to make it 5-3, and Brock Nelson hit for the final goal of the night with just under one minute left on the clock for the 5-4 final.
Makar, who struck for a pair of goals for Colorado, tied the game in the first period, 1-1, after Lee’s opening strike.
“I thought Varly was really good in goal,” Bednar said. “At the start of the second, we had a handful of chances and we created most of them with our ‘D’ in the slot area coming down the inside of the ice, and we missed the net on a bunch of those.
“Varly also made the big saves, and we find ourselves being in a real close game at the start of the third.”
Semyon Varlamov made 44 saves in the Isles loss.
“Varly gave us every chance to win that game tonight,” Cizikas said. “He played unbelievable. He made some incredible saves and we let him down. We let him down big time.”
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