Avs take Game 1

In Denver, Nathan MacKinnon scored twice in the third period and the Colorado Avalanche broke open a tight, 1-1, match on Monday night for a 4-1 over the St Louis Blues.

With the win, the Avs grab a 1-0 series lead.

“Fantastic third period,” Avalanche coach Jared Bednar said of the top line of Landeskog, MacKinnon and Rantanen. “They were making big plays all over the ice, both on the offensive side of things and on the defensive side. Huge impact on the game.”

Gabriel Landeskog also scored in the three-goal final frame.

“For us, it’s about wins and losses, and that’s what it comes down to,” Landeskog said. “I’m happy to be able to contribute. As a team, I thought we played a strong game. A few periods, second period, toward the end of it, we kind of got away from our game. I thought overall the third period was really good. Everybody chipped in. Everybody played well.”

Philipp Grubauer made 22 saves in the win.

Jordan Kyrou was the lone goal scorer for the Blues, his strike tied the game, 1-1, in the middle frame.

“It’s tough, we’ll be better,” Blues head coach Craig Berube said. “We’ve got to manage the puck better. Our execution wasn’t good with the puck tonight. On the defensive side we let them come out of their zone too easy and create odd-man rushes against us.”

Cale Makar opened the scoring in the first period for a 1-0 lead to the Avs.

“We believe in what we’re doing, and we ran into hot goalies earlier in the year as well,” Landeskog said. “For us, it’s find a way. Keep shooting the puck. It’s not going to start going in because you start overpassing or look for the perfect play. You’ve got to keep throwing pucks there and I thought we did a good job of that. We got rewarded in the third.”

Jordan Binnington made 46 saves in the loss.

“Yeah, it was very tough tonight,” Ryan O’Reilly, said. “They played very well, came at us with a lot of speed and yeah, it was difficult to generate anything and get momentum. They played well. They were by far the better team tonight. If it wasn’t for [Binnington], it would have been messy early, but we did some things all right. We’ve just got to improve and get back. We’ve got to get our rest and get ready for the next game.”