The Aftermath: Road Wins Keep Coming — Avalanche Defeat Columbus

It was another solid performance on the road for the Avalanche. For the third time in three games, the Avs went into an opposing team’s building, controlled play, and came out with two points.

And they only let in one goal each time.

On Thursday, it was a 4-1 victory over the Columbus Blue Jackets, improving the Avalanche’s early-season record to 4-0-1.

Columbus got the scoring started at 1:36 of the second period thanks to a tally from Ivan Provorov. The goal came off a rush attack after a brutal turnover by the Avs at the other end.

The Avalanche had controlled play for most of the first period and the early parts of the second but couldn’t solve a dialed in goalie in Elvis Merzlikins. The Jacket’s No. 1 guy made 12 saves in the first.

Colorado bounced back not too long after. But the goals didn’t come right away.

Finally, Cale Makar scored at 10:34 of the middle frame, and then Brock Nelson added another just over a minute later before Valeri Nichushkin made it 3-1 right before the period ended.

For Makar, it was his second of the season, and it came in regular-season game No. 400. Makar collected a pass from Martin Necas and fired a laser clean past Merzlikins.

The other two goals were different. Nelson redirected a point shot from Brent Burns from in between the hash marks to beat Merzlikins five hole. And Nichushkin also deflected a shot from the blueline, this time from Malinski.

Nichushkin also scored the empty netter.

Colorado outshot Columbus 37-23, and goalie Scott Wedgewood was rock solid again, earning his league-leading fourth win of the season.

What Worked

Nichushkin Turned Things Around

Nichushkin turned the puck over early in the second period on a play that was completely unforced. The Jackets came back the other way and scored to make it 1-0.

Several minutes later, he tried to set up Devon Toews at the blueline, and the puck was picked off, but the Jackets couldn’t score. It was still a brutal giveaway.

Fast-forward to the end of the period, and Nichushkin put the Avs up 3-1 off a sweet redirection play. He was also on the ice for the second goal, as the second line started to find its groove, and finished the game with two goals and a +2 rating

I love seeing a player bounce back as quickly as Nichushkin did. Those turnovers were unlike him, but the persistence was vintage Val.

He was a serious puck hound in the third period, too.

What Didn’t

Only One Power Play

There wasn’t much that went wrong in this one.

The Avs weren’t able to draw a penalty until the third period. On one hand, I didn’t see anything that was clearly missed by the officials through two periods, but it’s still a bit strange.

Especially since the Avalanche controlled play pretty much all night and were cycling the puck down low quite a bit.

Columbus only had two opportunities on the PP.

Wedgewood Stinger

Everyone on the Avalanche bench must’ve held their collective breaths when Wedgewood was hunched over in pain after a shot from Adam Fantilli stung him.

I know it wasn’t necessarily an injury-worthy play, but you don’t want the only goalie option you have from your tandem to be dealing with any kind of issues. At least not until you have your main guy back.

Wedgewood shook it off, and didn’t let in a goal the rest of the way. Let’s hope it wasn’t a bad bruise.