Capitalizing in Canada's Capital
Brock Nelson scored two goals while Nathan MacKinnon and Joel Kiviranta each added a tally to help the Avalanche defeat the Ottawa Senators 5-1 at Canadian Tire Centre on Thursday. Cale Makar, Jonathan Drouin and Ross Colton each recorded two points while Scott Wedgewood stopped 15 of the 16 shots he faced in net for Colorado.
"I'm really happy with it," Head Coach Jared Bednar said about the team's performance on Thursday. "I've been really happy with the way we've played. I know the game in Toronto we didn't get the results, but it was nice to see the puck go in for us. We had a handful of chances in the first period, but they were good chances and we capitalized on them. I thought that was a little bit of the difference from the Toronto game to tonight. But, [on] both sides of the puck, everyone [was] contributing. It was a tight-checking game on our side, I felt like we were doing a lot of good things offensively, getting to the net, creating rebounds, lots of deflections [and] pretty good looks from the umbrella and in the slot. Have to be pretty happy with the effort, the competitiveness and the execution here tonight."
With the win, the Avalanche improved to 42-25-3.
"We've been doing a good job of getting the wins," Bednar said. "The results have been coming for us. But it's because number one, we're committed to what we're doing right now, there's no question. We understand the importance of dialing in our game down the stretch run here getting ready for playoffs. And number two, the players that we added at the deadline are making a huge difference. It's skilled and experienced guys with good size and ability in the middle of the ice. You add Nelson, you add [Charlie] Coyle, we added Jack Drury before that and then [Ryan] Lindgren on the back end helps us. So solidifying that position, the center position, to play low in our zone, to add a few defensemen here to give us some depth in case we're missing guys, it's been huge for us."
