Avalanche pull away, score 8 in win against Ducks

DENVER -- The Colorado Avalanche scored five goals in the third period in an 8-2 win against the Anaheim Ducks at Ball Arena on Wednesday.

Joel Kiviranta had a goal and two assists, Cale Makar had three assists, and Valeri Nichushkin scored twice for the Avalanche (10-5-0), who have won their past two games. Devon Toews and Samuel Girard each had a goal and an assist, and Alexandar Georgiev made 15 saves.

“That's the way I want us to play. We've been waiting for it and waiting for it, and it just hasn't come out of our team yet,” Colorado coach Jared Bednar said. “We're in a fortunate spot tonight, right? They played last night. They're coming in a little bit tired. We're rested and ready to go and we're coming off a good game, so I expected us to have a good game tonight. We got it. Wasn't perfect, but it was pretty good.”

Kiviranta was in training camp with the Avalanche on a professional tryout. He started the season with Colorado of the American Hockey League and made his Avalanche debut Monday, a 5-1 win at the Seattle Kraken.

“It was a difficult situation after training camp, and we just tried to figure out something and now this is the case and I'm happy with that,” Kiviranta said.

Sam Carrick and Max Jones scored, and Lukas Dostal made 30 saves for the Ducks (9-7-0), who had won five straight road games, including 3-2 against the Nashville Predators on Tuesday.

“We just didn't have a good game. You can pick anything you want to pick to fix something,” Anaheim coach Greg Cronin said. “We just [played] six games in [10] nights, and it's a back-to-back game and there wasn't a lot of legs. Brain wasn't working. We were consistently bad from the start to the finish.”

Girard gave Colorado a 1-0 lead when he banked in a loose puck off a sprawling Alex Killorn during a goalmouth scramble at 6:40 of the first period.

Nichushkin extended the lead to 2-0 six minutes later, deflecting Toews’ point shot into the left corner of the net at 12:40.

"Val's a guy that's been working at [deflections], and he watches a lot of video with the power play especially,” Bednar said. “So he's put some effort into that over the last couple of years, and obviously tonight, that's sort of a perfect case scenario. He gets one on the 5-on-5, holding the net front on the deflection from Toews' shot, I think, and then the power-play one. Had one the other night as well, so it's certainly coming for him, which is nice to see.”

Carrick cut it to 2-1 on a redirection of Radko Gudas’ one-timer from the blue line at 19:27.

“It was just a great point shot from Gudas. We know he can shoot the puck, and I just got my stick on it,” Carrick said. “I think that's one thing we can do more of, is throwing pucks on net and getting sticks on them and maybe some more deflection goals and rebound goals. So, just got to find different ways to score.”

Fredrik Olofsson made it 3-1 with a one-timer from just above the circles that caromed off Dostal’s glove at 14:33 of the second period.

Ross Colton gave the Avalanche a 4-1 lead when he chased down a pass from Logan O'Connor and finished a breakaway at 3:53 of the third.

“A lot of goals. A lot of guys got on the board tonight, and defensively, we did a good job,” Colorado center Andrew Cogliano said. “We're not expecting maybe to score every night, but we got to create energy and we got to have two lines in the bottom six that are tough to play against and can play against any team and any line.”

Nichushkin scored on a deflection of Makar's point shot for a power-play goal at 5:51 to make it 5-1. It was his fourth goal in his past four games.

"He's in a good spot right now,” Makar said. “I’m going to try and feed him pucks whenever he's there.”

Jones cut it to 5-2 at 9:41 after Adam Henrique fought off Bowen Byram and passed behind his back and across the crease for a tap-in.

“We've been playing some good hockey as of late, so can't dwell on this one too much,” Carrick said. “Figure out what went wrong and move on to the next game.”

Kiviranta scored his first goal with the Avalanche when he split two defenders and beat Dostal short side with a wrist shot at 13:13 to make it 6-2. He then set up Cogliano on a 2-on-1 just 21 seconds later at 13:34 to give Colorado a 7-2 lead.

Toews finished a cross-zone pass from Makar at 15:18 for the 8-2 final.

“Third period, it was just one shift when like everything bounced perfectly, and it worked,” Kiviranta said. “I was actually hoping to get a change after that second one. Little too far for me.”

NOTES: Makar became the second active defenseman in the NHL with 70 multipoint games before age 26 (Erik Karlsson, 94). He is the first defenseman in Avalanche/Quebec Nordiques history to have 17 assists and 21 points within his first 15 games of a season. … Makar (one goal, nine assists) and Colorado center Nathan MacKinnon (two goals, nine assists) each extended his point streak to five games. MacKinnon has points in each of the Avalanche’s seven home games (four goals, nine assists). ... Ducks defenseman Cam Fowler was minus-4 in 22:04 of ice time.