Grubauer, Avs shut out Sharks

In Denver,the Colorado Avalanche’s Philipp Grubauer made 21 saves and shut out the visiting San Jose Sharks, 3-0, on Thursday night.

It was his second white wash of the season.

Nazem Kadri struck twice for the Avs.

“It felt great,” Kadri said. “I mean, it’s just staying patient, especially in our division where there’s a lot of teams that play a lockdown defense, so you have to grind for everything you get. I understand that. In previous games I felt like I’ve been on the net and missing quality opportunities, so I think if you just stay with it and the guys I’m playing with (Burakovsky, Saad) and the team I’m playing with, eventually it was going to come.”

Andre Burakovsky added a single marker in the win.

All the scoring came in the third period after the Sharks had managed to hold the Avs off.

“I didn’t sense any frustration from our guys after the first two periods,” Avalanche head coach Jared Bednar said. “The message was simple: just stick with it and let’s not pass up on any of our shots. We were getting a little too selective, we could have put a few pucks at the net. I thought we did that in the third. San Jose did play a real disciplined game and our guys stuck with it. It was a real mature performance from our team.”

San Jose dropped to 3-5-0.

“We’re losing draws on the power play, so we’re chasing pucks down the ice,” San Jose head coach Bob Boughner said. “We get in, get set up and we get a shot and they get it back down, so now you’ve gone up and down the ice twice and you don’t have any gas. We’ve got to win more draws on the power play. It’s got to be better.”Devan Dubnyk made 35 saves in the loss.

“We put ourselves in a good spot, 0-0 game going into the third,” Dubnyk said. “This is a tough team to play against. We’ve been grinding for a long time here, we put ourselves in a spot to win and we’re looking forward to moving on.”