Avalanche withstand late Coyotes rally

DENVER --Nathan MacKinnon had a goal and an assist to extend his point streak to 10 games, and the Colorado Avalanche held off the Arizona Coyotes for a 4-2 win at Ball Arena on Monday.

Mikko Rantanen scored two goals, Cale Makar had two assists, and Philipp Grubauer made 35 saves for Colorado (29-9-4), which is 16-1-2 in its past 19 games.
The line of Gabriel Landeskog, MacKinnon and Rantanen has combined for 96 points (41 goals, 55 assists) in 24 games since March 1.
"It just goes to show that our team goes as those guys go," Avalanche coach Jared Bednar said. "They're the leaders of our hockey club, and we need them to be. To be able to produce at the clip that they're producing at as a trio is pretty impressive, and we have some other guys that are doing a nice job and getting rewarded for it from a production standpoint.
"It just goes to show when you've got three world-class players like that, when they're playing together and producing the way they are, you'll win a lot of hockey games."

Johan Larsson and Michael Bunting scored in the third period, and Ivan Prosvetov made 16 saves in his first NHL start for Arizona (19-19-5), which has lost four straight after winning six of its previous seven games.
"It was exciting, my first career start, for sure," Prosvetov said. "My teammates were really supportive. They really did a good job in front of me. I think we played a good hockey game."
Each team was playing the second of back-to-back games; the Avalanche won 4-1 at the Anaheim Ducks on Sunday, when the Coyotes lost 1-0 at the Vegas Golden Knights.
Conor Garland appeared to score for Arizona at 11:30 of the first period, but Bednar challenged for goaltender interference, and the goal was overturned after it was determined by video review that Larsson made contact with Grubauer's pad.
Brandon Saad then gave Colorado a 1-0 lead at 12:17 with a backhand from the right hash marks over Prosvetov's glove.
MacKinnon made it 2-0 at 9:08 of the second period with a one-timer from the left face-off circle off a pass from Makar on the power play. MacKinnon has seven goals and 10 assists during his point streak.
Rantanen increased the lead to 3-0 at 18:03. Makar skated behind the net and passed to MacKinnon, who fed Rantanen in the slot for a shot that deflected in off the leg of Coyotes defenseman Oliver Ekman-Larsson.
"I think we played a really good game today," Arizona defenseman Niklas Hjalmarsson said. "I don't think they had that many chances. At the same time, I think we created a couple of decent ones. Obviously, the points are huge right now and the most important, but I feel like these two games can bring us some confidence for the rest of the games that are left."

Bunting made it 3-1 with a redirection on the power play at 10:42 of the third period. It was his sixth goal in eight games this season.
Larsson cut it to 3-2 at 13:16, skating down the slot after getting a loose puck and beating Grubauer over his blocker.
"It was good to see the group stick together," Coyotes coach Rick Tocchet said. "We played good tonight. We deserved better. I liked our battle."
Rantanen scored into an empty net with 1:57 left for the 4-2 final.
"Probably some things we were not sharp enough," Rantanen said. "There are some things we could've done better, so maybe we lost focus a little bit."
The Avalanche were outshot 14-5 in the third period.
"We gave up some pretty high-quality chances, and 'Grubi' bailed us out like he usually does," Makar said. "Fortunately for us, he was having a pretty good night. We know the areas we can clean up, but I think for us it's just another learning curve. We didn't want to let them back in the game like that, but I thought we showed resiliency when it got close and we started to pick it up again."
NOTES:Bednar said forward Carl Soderberg, who was acquired in a trade with the Chicago Blackhawks on Monday, will join the Avalanche in St. Louis on Tuesday and would be available to play Wednesday against the St. Louis Blues. Soderberg played four seasons with the Avalanche from 2015-19. … Rantanen reached 300 points in the NHL. He has 124 goals and 176 assists in 323 games.