In Denver, the Colorado Avalanche brought out the big sticks on Tuesday night and pasted the San Jose Sharks, 7-3.
For the sixth straight game, Mikko Rantanen had a goal for the Avs.
“I’m feeling healthy and I’m feeling good on the ice,” Rantanen said. “Playing with [Gabriel Landeskog] and [Nathan MacKinnon] is a great pleasure and I just go out and play and work as hard as I can to do the right things. It’s been nice to get rewarded. It’s been good for now and I just have to keep it going.”
Philipp Grubauer made 27 saves in the win.
“I thought all four lines were ready to skate, were tenacious on pucks,” Avalanche head coach Jared Bednar said. “I thought we were stronger on pucks in the offensive zone and moving our feet whenever we were touching it. [We were] just a little bit more in sync for me. I thought our [defensemen] did a nice job staying part of our offense. We got some timely goals and some nice performances from our guys.”
Noah Gregor, Logan Couture and Ryan Donato scored for the Sharks. 
“We made too many mistakes, turned the puck over and didn’t give our goalies much of a chance,” Couture said. “It’s really the first one of those. I thought we competed harder in the third, which we can build on. When you have a game like that you have to take some positives and move on. We’re going to have to be prepared against them (Thursday). Their speed is one of their best assets.”
Brandon Saad struck for two goals for the Avs, and Valeri Nichushkin, Devon Toews, and Joonas Donskoi had goals.
Martin Jones got the start for the Sharks and yielded five goals, making 14 saves.
“After the second it was tough, but we play them again in two days so we have to try to stay positive, send a message, because for sure we can do better,” the Sharks’ Tomas Hertl said. “It was not fun.”
Devan Dubnyk made 21 saves in relief of Jones after entering the game in the middle frame.
“Both goalies were left out to dry multiple times,” Sharks head coach Bob Boughner said. “It’s tough to make a goalie evaluation. I don’t blame our goalies, and we’ll look at the game tape and make a decision who starts next game (against Colorado on Thursday). They both didn’t have a lot of help. In these games you almost have to look at them, you have to make the corrections, you’ve got to make the adjustments and you’ve got to throw them away and forget about them. It’s just one of those nights for us.”
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