In Denver, the Vancouver Canucks waited until the third period to break out the offense and defeated the Avalanche, 3-1, on Wednesday night.
Jaroslav Halak made 32 saves in the Canucks win.
“It’s always nice to get a win in this league; it never gets old,” Halak said. “I think we, for the most part in the game, played pretty well. You’ve got to give them credit, (but) our guys battled hard. They’re a good team, Colorado, they’re a really good team, but we were able to not play into their hands. We tried to stick to our game plan.”
Brock Boeser and J.T. Miller opened the scoring the third period to give the Canucks a 2-0 lead.
“Not all the time you’re going to hold that team to one goal,” Miller said. “I understand you can play a good defensive game and they’re still going to get stuff. But for me, I feel like it makes me a better player. I love those moments. We needed a win. We’re still not out of it.”
Nazem Kadri scored for the Avs to get them within 2-1.
“I thought they did a nice job, Vancouver did, of kind of keeping us out on the perimeter,” Colorado coach Jared Bednar said. “We had a couple chances in there, but the attack mentality and getting pucks to the net and retrieving them just wasn’t quite where it was the other night. You see the one we score, (that’s) exactly what we did — move it around the perimeter, pass or two, and ‘Nate’ sifts it right to the net for a tip and the rebound’s in the back of the net. I would’ve liked to see us do that a little bit more tonight.”
The Avs dropped to the Avalanche 45-14-5.
“It’s the best game I’ve been a part of with this team,” Canucks coach Bruce Boudreau said. “We used the word ‘committed’ before the game and every one of them was committed. To play that team on even terms is a pretty special moment.”
Bo Horvat added an empty-net goal for the 3-1 final.
Darcy Kuemper made 24 saves in the Avalanche loss.
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