In Denver, Alexandar Georgiev made 18 saves, and the Avalanche shut out the Chicago Blackhawks, 4-0, on Thursday.
“It feels great. The game went pretty well for me,” Georgiev said. “I felt sharp. I made some good saves. We cleaned up the rebounds pretty well. So, great effort, and glad we got to a good start here.”
Logan O’Connor scored shorthanded at 11:46 of the first period for a 1-0 lead to the Avs. It was the second straight game for O’Connor to have scored shorthanded.
“Scoring that early in the game on the penalty kill, it was definitely nice to start off the game for us,” O’Connor said. “[Josh Manson] made a great play to sort of take more time and space away once they were over the line and step up around the hash marks. From there, just read the guys in the rush already and figured we’d have the puck there, and ‘Manse’ and ‘Cogs’ both made great heads-up plays to get me going through there.”
Ryan Johansen added to the score with a power play marker at 18:41 for a 2-0 lead at the end of the first.
“I thought we skated well in the first 10 minutes, and then unfortunately they got a short-handed goal and then a power-play goal. And it seemed like we were chasing after that,” Chicago coach Luke Richardson said. “They’re very strong on their sticks, and they’re a fast team. So, when we started standing still a little bit [in] the second half of the first period and trying to make plays doing that, they just gobbled us up.”
Devon Toews scored at 13:18 of the middle frame to balloon the lead to 3-0 for Colorado.
Nathan MacKinnon tacked on the fourth strike of the game for Colorado at 8:40 of the third for the final.
“Nate called for the puck, and I looked up. He was right there,” Colorado’s Tomas Tatar said. “These guys, they call for a puck, which is great, and it makes it a lot easier out there. And they can score.”
Petr Mrazek made 37 saves in the Hawks loss.
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