Avs power past Vancouver

In Vancouver, the Colorado Avalanche scored twice off the power play in the third period, 53 seconds apart, to help them down the Canucks, 4-2 on Wednesday night.

For the Canucks, it was their fifth straight loss.

Darcy Kuemper made 30 saves in the Avs win.

Nazem Kadri and Cale Makar had the two third period power play goals.  The goals came after the Canucks had taken a 2-1 lead in the period.

“For us, it’s just worrying about the one thing we can control and that being our work ethic,” Makar said. “Tonight we got away from that a little bit in the second period and then we started getting back to it in the third, so when we play to our identity like that not many teams can kind of stop our play.”

The Avs improved to 7-5-1.

“Attention to detail lately, just trying to execute better, more tape-to-tape passes,” Kadri said of the power play. “Guys have been communicating a lot and just trying to dot our i’s and cross our t’s to execute at a high level. We’ve got the skill set out there, it’s just about executing the game plan, and tonight was one of our better nights on the power play.”

“Frustrating to lose, especially with an effort like that,” Vancouver head coach Travis Green said. “Five-on-five it was one of our better games of the year. Obviously, the penalty kill let us down.”

Tucker Poolman had given Vancouver the lead early in the third period, 2-1.

“Not a good penalty for me to take there at that time,” Vancouver;s Quinn Hughes said of the Kadri goal. “I was obviously upset, didn’t like the hit, but it is what it is. I can’t be doing that.”

The Canucks’ Connor Garland tied the game, 1-1, in the middle frame.

“Sometimes when the ball’s rolling downhill it’s hard to stop the momentum, but I thought in ways we took some steps,” Green said. “I thought we got a little unlucky on the kill tonight, but we’ve got to be better. There’s no doubt about it.”

Colorado’s Mikko Rantanen  staked the Avs to a 1-0 lead in the first period off the power play.

“There was a lot of hard work that went into that from our group because we had some early power-play struggles,” Colorado head coach Jared Bednar said. “And guys have been digging in. It didn’t come easy for us tonight, but we stuck with it on a few occasions and were able to capitalize on a few nice plays. Give them credit, they put the work in behind the scenes and practice, in the video room, and it’s starting to come together without a few of our regulars in there.”

Gabriel Landeskog added a late empty-net goal for the 402 final.

Thatcher Demko made 26 save in the Vancouver loss.