In this year’s NHL, there is no apparent need to be truly exceptional like the Vegas Golden Knights. It helps of course, but it is not essential.
Case in point are the Colorado Avalanche; nothing flashy but when everyone around you is inconsistent and floundering on the rocks, and you can find a steady path to victories then all is well.
Such is the case in Denver where the Avs are just that, consistent.
On Monday night, Colorado visited the Toronto Maple Leafs and skated off with a 4-2 win, their 10th straight.
Gabriel Bourque, Nail Yakupov, Blake Comeau and Gabriel Landeskog struck for the Avs who overcame a 2-1 deficit to grab the win.
“To be honest, it was a huge goal for [Nail] Yakupov to go and do that so quickly after (the Maple Leafs took a 2-1 lead). I thought they gained some momentum in the second period, we turned some pucks over and fed into their transition a little bit, so that was a huge goal for us,” Comeau said after the win.
The win improved the Avs’ record to 27-16-3.
“We made a couple mistakes but got the save when we needed it tonight,” Avs head coach Jared Bednar said. “For the most part, our scoring chances against are slowly coming down over the last couple months. That’s where we want to get to, we want to be able to stay dangerous offensively and still do a good job defensively so we’re not over relying on our goalies.”
Patrick Marleau and Auston Matthews scored for the Leafs who replied to an early Avs goal to take a 2-1 lead.
“I just thought we played good enough and generated enough chances, they didn’t generate that many chances and, so, in the end, we should have won the game,” Leafs head coach Mike Babcock said. “We didn’t lose the game because of that goal in my opinion. We had lots of chances, we had lots of opportunity and they scored and we didn’t.”
Toronto dropped to 26-18-5 with the loss.
“I thought tonight was a telling tale of why we’ve had success the last little while here,” Comeau said. “We’ve got contributions from all four lines, we had a huge penalty kill, and Bernier played outstanding.”
Jonathan Bernier made 29 saves to pick up the win; it was his ninth straight win and he beat the Leafs, his former team.
“Feels really good,” Bernier said. “It’s one of those games where you look on the calendar and you want to play that game and you definitely want to win. I’ve got to give credit to the guys, we battled hard, stuck with it, and Comeau scored a big goal.”
[WATCH: All Avalanche vs. Maple Leafs highlights]
Frederik Andersen made 23 saves for the loss.
“I thought we played well, we had good scoring chances,” Andersen said. “I would have liked to have played a little bit better, but those games happen. I thought we had a chance today if I maybe I could make another big save.”
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