Recap: Nathan MacKinnon leads the way in Avalanche rout over Kraken

Nathan MacKinnon tallied five assists in the contest.

The Colorado Avalanche have defeated the Seattle Kraken by a final score of 6-3. Coming off of three disappointing losses to the Blackhawks, Lightning, and Predators, the Avs needed a fast start tonight to give themselves the best chance of breaking the schneid.

Led by Nathan MacKinnon and Mikko Rantanen, plus the return of Artturi Lehkonen to the lineup, the Avs delivered on their gameplan and kept Seattle in the rearview for most of the evening. Let’s break it down!

First Period

With such a depleted lineup, the single most important mission for the Avs tonight was to start the game on time, and get the first goal, so that they wouldn’t be chasing the game. MacKinnon came out and did exactly that. He won a puck battle at the blue line to keep the zone for the Avs, and he walked in before finding Chris Wagner for a wide-open net on the farside circle to give Colorado a 1-0 lead.

After dominating the first half of the period, Joel Kiviranta tripped up a Kraken player selling out in anticipation for a shot block and gave Seattle the first power play of the contest. The Avs held strong throughout the penalty kill, but directly after the penalty expired, Matty Beniers found Jaden Schwartz parked in front of the right post. Beniers fired a pass into the crease area and made contact with Schwartz who effortlessly deflected the pass into the back of the net to tie the game at one-all.

The Avs did not let the momentum shift with this goal, however, and instead got right back to work at even strength. A hardworking shift from a line of Nikolai Kovalenko, Ivan Ivan, and MacKinnon resulted in a hard drive to the net from Kovalenko, which resulted in some net-front chaos. Ivan Ivan collected the puck out of the pile of players while skating backward, and fired into an empty net as Philipp Grubauer was still down from the stop on Kovalenko, 2-1 Colorado.

Aside from the penalty that resulted in the Schwartz goal, as well as a late penalty while on the powerplay on Casey Mittelstadt, the Avs delivered the exact kind of period they needed to bring on home ice.

Second Period

Unfortunately, for as good as the Avs opened the first period, they did the exact opposite to open the second period. The late-period penalty on Colorado carried over, and Seattle had a brief power play, with emphasis on the brief.

Logan O’Connor failed to clear the zone shortly after the Kraken’s penalty expired, hitting Chandler Stephenson right in the gut with the clearing attempt. Seattle had a 2-on-1 with Colorado in disarray, and Jared McCann fired home a one-time blast through Justus Annunen’s five-hole. The Kraken had the game even at two goals a piece, and Colorado had to get back to work.

The Avs responded with a power play goal of their own, and it was Lehkonen, in his first game back from offseason hip surgery firing home a slick MacKinnon feed from the bumper to reclaim the lead for the Avs at 3-2.

Shortly after, the Avs got another power play following a Seattle slashing penalty, and this time it was Mikko Rantanen firing home a puck from his usual one-time spot, snapping an eight-game goalless drought in the process, pending a wacky offside review.

The Kraken challenged for a missed offside call that occurred 41 seconds prior to Rantanen’s goal and won the challenge to the extreme dismay of Jared Bednar on the bench. According to Mark Rycroft on the broadcast, the officials waived off Bednar when asking for an explanation twice, before Makar skated over to yell at the officials to watch the replay again.

Upon further review, it was found that while the Avs appeared offsides, the puck was technically carried into the Kraken zone by Seattle themselves, as Yanni Gourde fired a shot that missed Annunen and the Avalanche net entirely, rimmed out of the zone untouched, and back into the Seattle zone where Makar finally touched the puck. After a few more minutes of review, the no-goal call was reversed back to a good goal, and Seattle was assessed a delay of game penalty, which infuriated Dan Bylsma and his Kraken staff.

While this goal put the Avs up 4-2, the Avs would lose Cale Makar on this power play shift. He appeared to tweak something in his lower body and was being worked on by the trainers amidst the chaos. This injury would be about the biggest blow left you could deliver to an already dismantled Avs squad.

Third Period

The game pace slowed down in the third period as Colorado was content to sit on their lead. Seattle was unable to establish much of a zone presence at all through the first 15 minutes of the frame, with Colorado playing very disciplined defensive hockey down the stretch.

Seattle finally established a solid shift in the Avs zone with just under five minutes to go in the game, as well as pulling Grubauer for the sixth skater. The Avs did their absolute best to withstand the pressure from the Kraken, highlighted by an absurd effort from Parker Kelly that included five blocked shots.

The effort from Kelly was not rewarded, however. An exhausted Avs unit couldn’t keep up with the Kraken skaters to clear the puck for a line change, and shortly after Kelly’s fifth block, Seattle regained possession and Matty Beniers deflected home his second of the night off of a Brandon Montour shot.

The Kraken would pull the netminder once more, but this time Rantanen, (with a little help from the linesman), tracked down a loose puck and fired into the empty net to restore the two-goal lead.

Following a high hit and penalty to Montour after catching Joel Kiviranta in the head with his shoulder, Colorado would get a power play and score their sixth goal of the game, this time with Mittelstadt finding Nikolai Kovalenko net-front for his second tally of the season with just about a second remaining on the game clock.

Colorado skated away with a respectable 6-3 win down many key players and improved their record to 6-7-0 on the season.

Takeaways:

MacKinnon delivered massively, tallying an assist on Colorado’s first five goals en route to a five-point night. With how many bodies continue to be out of the lineup, performances like this from the reigning MVP are certainly appreciated, and he’ll have to continue to perform at a premier level nightly to keep the Avs afloat.

Lehkonen scored in his first game back from offseason shoulder surgery and overall had a very impressive night. I thought he was all over the puck and looked like his usual self battling out there. His goal was really sweet too!

Makar exited the contest following Colorado’s fourth goal and did not return to action. He made a brief appearance on the bench in the third period but exited again after one shift. Jared Bednar had no update on his condition postgame.

Upcoming

The Avalanche head on the road Thursday evening to take on the Winnipeg Jets, in what will be the first matchup between the two teams following their first-round playoff series in May that saw the Avs eliminate the Jets in five games.

Winnipeg is on a tear to open the season, having won 12 of 13 contests. They defeated the Utah HC earlier tonight, by a score of 3-0. Puck drop for that contest is set for 6:00 p.m.

Local fans will be able to catch this game on the KUSA-9 station.