In Denver, six different skaters scored for the Colorado Avalanche on Tuesday night in a 6-0 thumping of the San Jose Sharks.
Alexandar Georgiev made 13 saves for the shutout, his fourth of the season.
“Let’s be fair, right. It’s a tough schedule, the back-to-back travel, cross border, get in late, playing some tough teams and playing a lot of hockey, and we finally catch a team that’s a little bit tired and we’re rested,” Avalanche coach Jared Bednar said. “Tonight, there was a lot of positive signs, and again, we had the better legs and we were skating, but you should be able to do that and repeat that type of performance and that type of effort and that type of execution regardless of who you’re playing if you’re sharp and dialed in.”
The Avalanche improved to 35-21-6.
With the win, the Avs moved into third in the Central Division.
The Sharks dropped to 19-33-12.
“That was as dominant a performance as I’ve seen all year. That hasn’t happened to us all year,” San Jose coach David Quinn said. “A), they’re very good; B), we’ve been going through a lot the last few weeks like a lot of teams have, but big win last night and traveled here. But everybody plays back to back. Anything that could have gone wrong did. (We) didn’t show any type of characteristics that we have throughout the season, and we’ve just got to move forward here quickly.”
Colorado scored three in the opening period on strikes from Cale Makar, Nathan MacKinnon, and Mikko Rantanen.
“It’s fun when you win games like this, and when you do in a fashion where we play a complete game, that’s even better,” Makar said. “Obviously, I always want to contribute, but that’s not how I base my game-to-game play. I think it’s more so the overall aspect. I look at different things, whether it’s offensively or not.”
Valeri Nichushkin ballooned the advantage to 4-0 in the middle frame.
“I think that was nice start, especially like sometimes you have like 20 shots to score one goal, and today we, I think, get more lucky,” Nichushkin said. “Ten years ago, it was, I had like four points, too. Probably next game will be in 10 years again.”
At 2:45 of the second, Denis Malgin extended the lead to 5-0.
Artturi Lehkonen added the final insult for the 6-0 final in the middle frame.
“[Lehkonen’s] an extremely hard worker, extremely hard worker. He’s in on the forecheck all the time,” Bednar said. “He’s a puck hound.”
Kaapo Kahkonen got the start for San Jose, and yielded five goals on 24 shots before getting the hook in the middle frame.
James Reimer made 18 saves in a mop up role.
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