Avalanche score nine in win against Coyotes

DENVER -- Joonas Donskoi scored three goals 7:31 into the first period for the Colorado Avalanche, who extended their point streak to 12 games with a 9-3 win against the Arizona Coyotes at Ball Arena on Wednesday.

Donskoi's hat trick is the fastest by an Avalanche/Quebec Nordiques player to begin a game and the eighth fastest in NHL history.
"We came out to play and we had a good start," Donskoi said. "It's just fun to play on this line right now with (Tyson) Jost and Val (Nichushkin). I know they're going to work their [butts] off every shift, and those goals that I got, I got a couple lucky bounces and was able to put them in the back of the net. Playing with those two guys is super fun right now. I'm happy to be healthy and I'm feeling good, so hopefully it's going to stay that way."
Gabriel Landeskog had two goals and an assist, Andre Burakovsky scored twice, and Mikko Rantanen had a goal and two assists for Colorado (23-8-4), which is 10-0-2 during its streak. Philipp Grubauer made 28 saves.
"It's been a good season so far, the last month or five weeks we've really hit our stride once we started getting healthy," Landeskog said. "We knew what kind of team we had, and I think we've shown it over the last five, six weeks. There's still steps we can take. For us, it's important that we keep working, keep trying to achieve first place in the division when the season is over and put ourselves in a good spot for the playoffs."
Michael Bunting scored his first of the season for Arizona (16-15-5), which started a nine-game road trip. Adin Hill allowed four goals on 10 shots before being replaced in the first period by Ivan Prosvetov, who made 23 saves in his NHL debut.
"We just weren't ready to play," Coyotes coach Rick Tocchet said. "Maybe one or two guys had decent games. It was just a bad game by everybody. Bad decisions early. The game plan, right out the window the first couple of shifts. I don't know if they were ready to play, it's on me. I thought we were ready to play. It's Colorado, they skate well. We had some guys who looked really slow out there tonight. I don't know why they would be tired, we had two, three days off. It's a head-scratcher."

Donskoi gave the Avalanche a 1-0 lead at 4:04 of the first period, putting in the rebound of Jost's shot. Burakovsky made it 2-0 at 4:31 with a one-timer off a cross-ice pass from Nazem Kadri.
Bunting, who was making his season debut, scored 10 seconds later to cut it to 2-1, but Pierre-Edouard Bellemare made it 3-1 at 5:36 with a shot glove side from the left circle.
Donskoi pushed the lead to 4-1 at 6:04, tucking the puck inside the left post from the side of the net. He then completed the hat trick to make it 5-1 at 7:31 with a one-timer from the right hash marks. The forward has scored 15 points (nine goals, six assists) in his past 10 games.
"He's been awesome," Landeskog said. "What a first period, what a first 7 1/2 minutes from him. That was pretty incredible to watch. I even thought, watching the rest of the first period from the bench, I thought he could have had a couple more. It felt like he was on pace for six, seven goals."

Oliver Ekman-Larsson scored on a power play to make it 5-2 at 18:57 of the first, and Conor Garland cut it to 5-3 at 17:45 of the second period, but Landeskog scored 21 seconds later to make it 6-3.
"We were kind of making it a game," Coyotes defenseman Alex Goligoski said. "We got it to two and that one they got at the end of the period kind of set us right back. It kind of spiraled from there. You can't let this stuff happen."
Rantanen extended the lead to 7-3 at 6:05 of the third period with a one-timer on the power play.
Landeskog made it 8-3 at 11:57 from the left circle before Burakovsky scored on a 2-on-0 with Donskoi at 16:49 for the 9-3 final.
The Avalanche played before 4,050 fans after getting approval from the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment. Health care providers, frontline staff, first responders, players' families and employees of owners Kroenke Sports and Entertainment were the first to attend.
"It was a lot of fun," Colorado coach Jared Bednar said. "You could tell our guys were excited about it by the way we came out. It's just so much different playing in front of fans. We really missed it as a team and we wanted to put our best foot forward, and I thought we did that in the first period."
NOTES:Donskoi's hat trick came in a 3:27 span, the second fastest in Avalanche/Nordiques history behind Alain Cote, who scored three goals in 2:17 on April 1, 1982. … Grubauer (22-7-1) leads the NHL in wins. … Rantanen (nine goals, nine assists) and Nathan MacKinnon (five goals, 13 assists) each has scored 18 points in his past 11 games. … Landeskog has scored 17 points (seven goals, 10 assists) in his past 10 games. … Ekman-Larsson has scored six points (two goals, four assists) in his past six games.