In Columbus, the Colorado Avalanche waited until the back half of the third period to get their offense going.
Nazem Kadri had a goal for the Avs in the win – file photo by Lewis Bleiman
Trailing 0-1 to the Blue Jackets, the Avs got goals from Nazem Kadri and Nathan MacKinnon to break the shut out and defeat Columbus, 2-1.
“It was a character win and one of the best of the season,” Kadri said. “It’s not easy to play against a team that plays defensively, has a hot goaltender, doesn’t give you much offensively. We stuck with it and won the game the last 10 minutes.”
Seth Jones was the lone scorer for the Jackets.
“I don’t think we had enough [offense], to be honest,” Jones said. “We had little stretches, little spurts, but for the most part we played a lot of defense tonight.
“We did a decent job of it, defending them, but they had the puck a little bit more than we did. But when we did hold on to the puck, you saw what happened. We got a lot of bodies to the net, a lot of chances right around their crease area but couldn’t get one in.”
[WATCH: All Avalanche vs. Blue Jackets highlights]
Elvis Merzlikins was looking for his third straight shut out and nearly made it. He made 20 saves in the loss.
“The first two periods we had to defend, but we defended well. We were the fresher team in the third period,” Blue Jackets coach John Tortorella said. “We play our best period of the game, third period. We can’t score, they score two. We had 10 or 11 chances to go up 2-0 in the third period. They had two chances and they score two goals.”
You must be logged in to post a comment.