In Denver, the Colorado Avalanche blew a two-goal lead on Saturday, then rallied to tie the game, 3-3, with the Toronto Maple Leafs, before losing, on a Tyler Bertuzzi hat trick goal late in the third period. 
“Even before tonight I was feeling good. I thought I was making good plays and just playing decent hockey, and tonight felt good,” Bertuzzi said. “That was a great road trip for us (4-0-0). Collecting eight points and being able to go home on that note is awesome.”
Ilya Samsonov made 26 saves in the win.
The Maple Leafs moved to 33-16-8, off their seventh straight win..
“It’s a different type of game than the ones we’ve played here recently. Frankly, for most of the game, I thought we were pretty overwhelmed, but I thought we didn’t break,” Toronto coach Sheldon Keefe said. “There’s just a lot of belief in what they’re doing, belief in the group. Obviously, ‘Sammy’ in net battled real hard tonight and kept it out, gave the guys hope.”
Mitchell Marner had a single marker in the win.
The Avs’ Artturi Lehkonen scored off the power play at 2:16 of the opening stanza to stake them to a 1-0 lead.
Andrew Cogliano pushed Colorado into a 2-0 lead at 11:07.
Bertuzzi potted his first of the night at 13:42 to trim the deficit to 2-1, scoring off a power play.
“Obviously, he’s still a very elite tipper. Gets good sticks on pucks. He gets in kind of around that net. He’s great at screening the goalie,” Marner said of Bertuzzi. “ You knew he was due. I think the last couple of weeks he’s really been playing some great hockey, and that line between him, ‘Willy,’ and [Max Domi], they move the puck very well.”
Avalanche dropped to 35-19-5.
“That was frustrating because I thought we played hard and did a lot of good things, but certainly didn’t score easy. I felt like we did it to ourselves at the end of the game,” Colorado coach Jared Bednar said. “Guys did a lot of good things. Good competitive effort from our guys, but when you’re not scoring easy, you just can’t make a couple of those mistakes.”
In the middle frame, Bertuzzi picked up his double at 14:45 for a 2-2 tie.
“I feel good out there,” Bertuzzi said. “Just trying to find little holes here and there, and obviously you saw tonight, they’ll find you. You just got to find the open ice.”
Marner pushed the advantage to 3-1 at 16:48 of the second.
“I think we’re playing very good hockey, all four lines, all three [defense] pairs, and 
we’ve had some massive saves from both our goalies,” Marner said. “Obviously, it’s a lot more fun around the locker room when you’re winning games. So, just got to make sure we keep doing the right things, keep building as a team in here, and when we’re doing stuff right on that ice, it’s showing.”
Mikko Rantanen scored at 4:41 of the third period to make it 3-3.
“I think I have been looking to pass first maybe too much lately. I [was] trying to attack more tonight and move forward,” Rantanen said. “They go 2-for-2 on the power play, and we go 1-for-1. I wish we had another one, but can’t do anything about it.”
Bertuzzi collected his hats with just under three minutes left on the game clock for the 4-3 final count on the scoreboard.
Alexandar Georgiev made 26 saves in the loss.
“I thought we outplayed them for most of the game. I thought we had a good game,” Cogliano said. “[It] just comes down to a penalty at the end of the game and they score on a broken play and they find a guy open in front of the net. It just seemed like there were a couple of goals in the second, and it’s a tough one to give up at the end.”
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