In Denver, Alexandar Georgiev made 31 saves for his third shutout of the season, in a 3-0 win over the Vegas Golden Knights on Monday night.
“I think the first period was one of the tougher ones for me, but I think we played really, really great [in the] second and third,” Georgiev said. “Didn’t let them get too much going on. We’re playing really, really good right now, and it’s not a big workload in terms of shots. So fun to play like that.”
Mikko Rantanen scored twice, once in each of the first two periods for a 2-0 lead to the Avs after 40 minutes.
“Catch up hockey’s losing hockey. There’s no question,” Avalanche coach Jared Bednar said. “[It’s] part of the recipe for success, and if you look at our last 16 games, we’ve scored or we’ve played with the lead a lot. I think we’re currently in the best stretch of hockey we’ve played this year. It’s also the best lineup that we’ve had all year long.”
Colorado improved to 34-19-5, and they are 7-0-1 in their last eight.
Rantanen has 40 goals on the season.
“It’s just a number. I feel like it doesn’t really change too much,” Rantanen said. “I’m not going to celebrate it too much tonight. [It’s] more about the win and the two points. I’m glad to help the team. If I can score as many goals as I can, then I think it’s going to help the team win. So that’s all I care about.”
The Golden Knights dropped to 35-19-6.
“They checked us really well,” Vegas coach Bruce Cassidy said. “I thought the difference in the game for us, in the O-zone, we got pushed off pucks pretty much all night. We generated a few slot looks, but we didn’t get the second chance from that. If you want to score goals in this league, you got to separate and be hard on it or you got to execute at a high level. Tonight, we did not do that. That was very evident.”
The loss snapped a nine-game point streak by the Knights.
Nathan MacKinnon added an empty-net goal at 16:33 for the 3-0 final.
Adin Hill made 31 saves in the Vegas loss.
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