In Denver, the Avalanche pushed their home winning streak to 16 on Monday night with a 2-0 shutout of the Chicago Blackhawks.
“It’s just a feather in our cap for the guys,” Avalanche head coach Jared Bednar said. “They’re finding ways to win hockey games. We’ve set a pretty high standard in our room in the way we want to go about our daily basis, how we want our guys to play.
“They all haven’t been perfect, but a lot of the games have been really good. They keep pushing that standard and they recognize when it’s not great, but they’re happy to get the points. Guys understand that we have this streak at home and they want to keep it going.”
After a scoreless first period, Nazem Kadri hit for a power play goal in the middle frame and 1-0 lead.
Pavel Francouz made 23 saves to get the shutout.
Chicago dropped to 15-20-7.
“Just couple mistakes, and when you’re playing against a great team, two mistakes will cost you,” Blackhawks head coach Derek King said. “We played well. We had our opportunities, but that’s a really good hockey team. If we thought it was going to be easy, and I don’t think we thought it was going to be easy, but there were times we competed the right way and other times where we kind of just dropped our compete a little lower than it should be and they capitalized. We made a couple of mistakes, and that’s why they’re one of the best teams in the League.”
Mikko Rantanen scored in the third period to ice the win.
The Avs improved to 29-8-3.
“I think the way the game developed, I could see a big difference when we scored that one goal and we kind of shut them down,” Francouz said. “It was huge, we controlled the whole third period, we were patient, we just did what we needed, and it was a big message for everyone that these are the habits that Mikko talked about getting closer to the playoffs. It was a huge test for us and we passed.”
Marc-Andre Fleury made 27 in the Hawks loss.
“We all thought it could’ve been a similar situation tonight,” Chicago’s Patrick Kane said. “We grinded pretty hard for 2 1-2 periods. Just maybe didn’t have a big enough push there in the third period to equalize the game.
“I think it was a pretty even game overall. We knew we had to come in and try to grind against a team like this, try not to give them much. They have a lot of good players and they’re going to create, but I thought we played a pretty even game with them.”
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