In Denver, the story of the game was the 4-0 lead the visiting Pittsburgh Penguins held over the Avalanche on Sunday afternoon in the middle frame. 
The other story of the match was Nathan MacKinnon hitting for a goal and three points in the win. He now has an overall point streak of 18 games, and has scored in every one of the 34 home Avs home games this season.
“This guy’s a phenomenal player, right? But that’s pretty good company,” Colorado coach Jared Bednar said. “When you’re talking about our boss that’s had such a phenomenal career, and then you watch what Nate’s doing, it just speaks to who Nate is as a player and what he’s capable of.”
The Avalanche rallied from a 4-0 deficit with Jonathan Drouin sitting for the game winner at 54 seconds of extra time. It was his second goal of the game.
Alexandar Georgiev made 30 saves in the win.
The Avalanche moved to 46-20-5 off their ninth straight win.
“They came out really good, obviously. I think we were a little shocked, and we were pretty bad ourselves. Just a tough combination,” MacKinnon said. “I thought [Sidney Crosby] showed why he’s still the best. He dominated us tonight, especially our line. We had a better third for sure, but [it took] the full team effort. Our depth, the guys we traded for were unreal tonight. Obviously, ‘Drou,’ I thought, was our best player. So, a full team effort to make a comeback.”
The game was all Pittsburgh into the middle frame.
Jesse Puljujarvi opened the scoring at 7:53 of the first period for a 1-0 led to the Pens. He picked up an errant puck down low for the goal.
Bryan Rust then scored at 15:11 for a 2-0 lead headed to the middle frame. He scored on a power move to the net.
“You can see in the first half of the game we played on our toes,” Rust said. “We played in their face, and if we do that, we can be better than any team. I think when we play passive and don’t play in their face, that’s when things go the wrong way.”
Sidney Crosby stretched the lead to 4-0 midway through the second period, hitting on a deflected sh“We didn’t keep our feet moving. I think we kind of started watching a little bit,” the Penguins’ Lars Eller said. “We gave them an inch and they [took] advantage of every bit of space they got. We didn’t do a good enough job of playing without the puck.”
The Pens ballooned the lead to 4-0 at 15:40 of the second when Pierre-Olivier Joseph scored.
The Penguins dropped to 30-30-10 off their third straight loss.
In the second period, Sean Walker popped the Pens balloon when he scored at 16:05 to trim the deficit to 4-1, scoring off a shot form the right circle.
Yakov Trenin cut the gap to 4-2 at 19:30 of the second period, scoring off a deflection.
“I think ‘Pitt’ played really well tonight,” Bednar said. ‘They gave us more than we could handle through at least 30 minutes of that game, and I think it took an exceptional effort from our guys tonight to win that hockey game. It took our whole roster, our depth, like everybody involved in it.”
In the third period, Drouin picked up his first of the game to close the gap to 4-3 with a strike at 3:32, scoring off a shot from the right circle.
MacKinnon potted his marker at 15:22 of the third, scoring off a shot form the left side. 
Alex Nedeljkovic made 21 saves in the loss.
“We played good enough to win that game. I mean, they’re a really good hockey team,” Nedeljkovic said. “To hold them to four shots in the first period, to be up 4-0 with four to play in the second period and not come away with two points, it’s pretty disappointing.”
You must be logged in to post a comment.