In Denver, Kyle Connor hit for a double, and the visiting Winnipeg Jets handed the Avalanche a 4-2 loss on Thursday night.
Connor Hellebuyck made 32 saves in the win.
“That was a great effort, it really was,” Winnipeg coach Rick Bowness said. “It’s a great hockey team over there. We talked about it this morning — we want to be considered an elite team, and you’ve got to beat the teams ahead of you. And we proved tonight that we can play with anybody.”
The Jets improved to 15-8-2.
Winnipeg took a 1-0 lead in the first period on a marker from Adam Lowry with three seconds left on the clock in the first.
“There’s 10 seconds left, ‘Ax’ gets on the forecheck, creates a turnover,” Lowry said. “I thought we played a really solid period, but to come in up 1-0, it’s a different feeling than [if] you battle hard and you’re not rewarded.”
Connor hit for his first of the night with 32 seconds of fresh of ice used in the middle frame for a 2-0 lead to the Jets.
“The start of the second period, [Connor] comes out and scores. It’s 32 seconds in, and before you know it, it’s been under 40 seconds, we’re up 2-0 and have kind of started to take over the game,” Lowry said. “Anytime you can kind of hold off a team that’s thrown [Mikko] Rantanen, MacKinnon, and [Cale] Makar out there, you’ve got to feel good about yourself.”
Colorado dropped to 16-8-2.
“The start of the game for me [was] too safe, just too vanilla,” Colorado coach Jared Bednar said. “I felt like we lacked the intensity and sort of urgency; intensity on the offensive side that we need to create scoring chances, and urgency on the defensive side. I felt like we handed them some goals tonight. We didn’t make them earn them, like the first two. We have the turnover at the end of the period where we probably can do anything else with it but that, and it’s in the back of our net.”
Nathan MacKinnon got the Avs on the board at 2:30 of the second to trim the deficit to 2-1.
“He’s obviously been crucial,” the Avs’ Cale Makar said. “His play’s just been elevated to a completely new level, and he does that every year. Doesn’t shock me.”
The responded with a strike by Josh Morrissey at 15:13 of the second for a 3-1 lead to the Jets.
“We always talk about trying to be an elite team. We want to be considered one of the best in this conference, one of the best in the division,” Lowry said. “We talked about if you want to be in that conversation, you’ve got to beat those elite teams, and I thought we did a really good job.”
Colorado closed the gap to one, again, with 31 seconds left in the middle frame on a goal from Joel Kiviranta.
“I still think we need some stars to be better than they were tonight,” Bednar said. “We’re kind of hit-and-miss throughout our lineup here for the last little bit. It’s costing us.”
Connor pikced up his double with 37 seconds left in the game clock for the 4-2 final.
Use CodePHN15 Jets win 3rd straight and 7th in 10.
Alexandar Georgiev made 24 saves in the loss.
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