Recap: Colorado finally breaks through against Anaheim

The Colorado Avalanche finally get their first win of the season!

Well, that only took a couple of minutes. After playing 15 periods of hockey in total across five games, and almost an entire overtime period as well, the Colorado Avalanche finally got their first win of the 2024-25 season, beating the Anaheim Ducks by a final score of 4-3.

Let’s break down all of the action from tonight!

First Period

Well the bad news is that Colorado is unlucky right now on top of everything else, unfortunately. The good news is that being THIS unlucky isn’t sustainable. That being said, Anaheim gets arguably a little bit lucky on this first goal. After a wild scramble in the crease, that initially looked like the puck should have been blown dead, Anaheim ends up digging the puck out from the scrum and putting it in the back of the net.

And it wouldn’t be an NHL game without a little officiating controversy, so let’s get that out of the way early, shall we? Anaheim would score a goal right before the first period ended, as a result of a missed stoppage for the puck going out of play. You can say “play to the whistle” all you want, I get it, but that puck was clearly out of play, the ref looked like he was going to blow the play dead as he watched the puck go out of play, and then just didn’t blow the play dead for whatever reason.

Second Period

Casey Mittelstadt would waste no time finally converting on a chance for Colorado on a breakaway. Mittelstadt would find a way to get all the way behind the Ducks’ defense, and Nikolai Kovalanko would manage to find him with a pass to set him up for his fourth goal this season.

Colorado continued to press all period long, hounding Lukas Dostal with chances. While it came out to nothing in the end, they carried momentum – and a man advantage – into the third period.

Third Period

After managing to get themselves within one during the second period, Ross Colton would tie it up for the Avs, not even a minute into the third period. There was a flurry of penalties taken by both teams at the end of the second period, so Colorado actually started this period with a 4-on-3 powerplay. The Avs would eventually get set up right about at the top of the circles in the Anaheim zone, and Mittelstadt would execute a pretty sweet pass to set up Colton for a one-timer, and he managed to beat Dostal.

Colorado continued to press offensively after they tied the game, and eventually, they were rewarded for it. Colton would continue his tear tonight, as he would also tack on his fourth goal of the year and give the Avs the go-ahead goal in this period as well. Mikko Rantanen would take the puck for a trip behind the net, and pass it out into the slot on what initially looked like a bit of a nothing pass. However, as elite players often do, what looked like a nothing pass was entirely intentional, and Mikko found Colton right in the slot, who made no mistake with that pass.

The Ducks would get a 6-on-4 powerplay for the last roughly two minutes of regulation or so, and they would tie the game at three and we would head into overtime from there. Truth be told, there’s not a lot to say on this goal, only because there’s generally a pretty high likelyhood that any team who gets a two-man advantage is going to convert on it so, what the heck you gonna do?

Overtime

To answer the previously posed question, Nathan MacKinnon scoring is exactly what you’re going to do! After arguably deserving a little puck luck themselves, especially after that first period, they finally get a fortunate bounce themselves. Make no mistake about this goal, MacKinnon made that goal happen on his own entirely by breaking into Anaheim’s zone in a one-on-three situation, and it’s a decent shot, but the puck also takes a fortunate bounce off of Dostal and into the back of the Ducks’ net before he can corral it, bringing us to the final 4-3 score!

Takeaways

I mentioned this in the game preview actually, but coming into this game it certainly felt like there were bits and pieces of Colorado’s play from the previous four games that you could feel at the very least pretty solid about, but it just didn’t seem like they could put it all together. Tonight, it at the very least arguably felt like a more cohesive game where everything came together, which is absolutely a step in the right direction. And tonight, they also seemed to just not care that things weren’t going their way tonight, especially after the two weird goals in the first period.

Colorado’s depth continued to impress too, namely Ross Colton and Casey Mittelstadt. Colton of course finished with two goals on the night, and Mittelstadt recorded one goal and an assist. Those two players specifically stood out in the best way tonight, their chemistry is undeniable at this point, which is of course a huge positive as they wait for reinforcements to come.

While there are still some things to be worried about, if it makes anyone feel better, a lot of those issues will probably arguably fix themselves in time as injured players start to return. Those four losses prior to this game felt bad, and they absolutely did, but this is also a long season, with a lot of opportunities to turn things around and make up ground. Good teams will go through tough stretches like this, and bad teams will go on winning streaks, that’s just how this sport goes. That being said, this is an 82-game season, not 82 different one-game seasons, it will get better for the Avs and there are plenty of opportunities for it to get better. Tonight is a step in the direction of things getting better, no doubt about it.

Upcoming

Colorado heads out to California to take on the San Jose Sharks on Sunday, October 20. Puck drop is at 6:00 p.m. MT.