Avalanche score 5 straight, surge past Senators

OTTAWA -- Mikko Rantanen scored twice, and the Colorado Avalanche rallied for a 7-4 win against the Ottawa Senators at Canadian Tire Centre on Tuesday.

Nathan MacKinnon had two assists to extend his point streak to nine games (16 points; four goals, 12 assists), and Samuel Girard had three assists for the Avalanche (29-13-3), who have won four of their past five games. Colorado lost 4-3 at the Montreal Canadiens on Monday.

“We weren’t great going through the first 20 minutes, 40 minutes,” Avalanche coach Jared Bednar said. “We were giving up too much, looking like we were lacking some energy, for sure. We had bursts offensively, but when you’re a little tired, you’re kind of getting a little complacent, loose defensively, you know? It just takes a lot of effort to try and get the legs going and defend, so we were giving up too much. We knew if we just could amp it up just a little bit more, we were in a game and we could give ourselves a chance. We scored some timely goals.”

Jason Polin scored his first NHL goal, and Justus Annunen made 36 saves in his season debut for Colorado.

“I got more confidence [as the game went on],” said Annunen, who was recalled from Colorado of the American Hockey League on Sunday. “There were a couple of goals that I didn’t like, but the game is a lot different up here, so I had to get used to the tempo. The shots are a lot better.”

Ridly Greig scored twice, Jake Sanderson had a goal and an assist, and Brady Tkachuk and Claude Giroux each had three assists for Ottawa (15-24-0), which has lost six of seven. Mads Sogaard made 27 saves in his season debut.

“It’s never really a 60-minute effort,” said Tkachuk, the Senators captain. “I think we let off the gas; we have previously. We just need to find a way to just put in a consistent 60-minute effort and make life a little bit easier for our goalies.”

The Avalanche scored five straight goals after being down 4-2 midway through the second period. The previous time the teams played against each other Dec. 21, Colorado scored four straight goals after being down 4-2 en route to a 6-4 victory.

“I definitely think part of it is mental,” Senators coach Jacques Martin said. “You know, you’ve got to build some resistance; you’ve got to build some mechanism that when you face adversity it brings the best out of you instead of folding.”

Drake Batherson gave Ottawa a 1-0 lead at 9:29, scoring on his own blocked shot in the slot on the power play.

Rantanen tapped in a centering pass from Cale Makar to tie it 1-1 at 10:07. Rantanen also has a nine-game point streak (14 points; six goals, eight assists).

Greig gave Ottawa a 2-1 lead at 1:21 of the second period. Tkachuk’s point shot hit the post and the puck laid on the goal line until Greig dove and poked it in.

Polin elected to shoot on a 2-on-1 and beat Sogaard glove side with a snap shot to tie it 2-2 at 2:27.

“I’ll tell you what, he’s really paid attention to his checking details and making sure he’s a better 200-foot player than he was in college (at Western Michigan University),” Bednar said of Polin.

Greig scored his second goal of the period to make it 3-2 at 7:21 when he took a centering pass from Tkachuk, skated into the slot and beat Annunen with a wrist shot blocker side.

“I think my game’s coming along, slowly,” Greig said. “My offensive game and instincts are building and I’m just learning every day.”

Sanderson made it 4-2 at 11:04 when he drove to the net and finished a deke on the forehand in tight.

The Avalanche thought they’d scored when Sam Malinski beat Sogaard with a wrist shot from the top of the slot on the rush at 15:15. But the Senators challenged, and the goal was overturned when video review determined Jonathan Drouin was offside.

Rantanen took a cross-ice pass from MacKinnon on the rush and scored with a snap shot top right from just inside the left face-off dot to cut it to 4-3 at 16:18.

Miles Wood beat Vladimir Tarasenko wide, cut to the middle and chipped the puck over Sogaard’s blocker to tie it 4-4 at 4:04 of the third period. Wood, who also had an assist, missed the previous five games because of an illness.

“I think we just need a better effort from some people,” Martin said. “We need more determination. Like, I look at the fourth goal and it’s a lack of determination and a lack of commitment. To me, when you’re ahead and you’re protecting the lead, you need to have some urgency in your game.”

Malinski put Colorado in front 5-4 at 8:14 with a wrist shot from the point that beat Sogaard clean on the power play.

“Huge goal, right?” Bednar asked rhetorically. “The top power play unit was up and down the ice a little bit, [the second unit] gets out, they hadn’t been seeing a bunch of time, but they’d been working hard in practice, they move it around nicely for a chance or two and then Sam finds the back of the net. That was a huge goal. Good perseverance by Sam getting the one called back by about an inch at the [blue] line.”

Logan O’Connor used Sanderson as a screen and beat Sogaard glove side with a wrist shot from the slot to make it 6-4 at 12:24.

“It’s a high-tempo game back and forth and there’s some good chances at both ends,” Sogaard said. “But six goals on my end is too many, and that’s something that I’m going to work on and try to be better for these guys.”

Devon Toews scored into an empty net at 15:16 for the 7-4 final.

“On a back-to-back, going against a fresh team, that’s sort of what you need to do,” O’Connor said. “Have everyone pulling on the reins, have everyone contributing in different ways. I thought Justus was also huge for us when we needed him. He made a lot of key stops and gave us the opportunity to come back there in the third.”

NOTES: MacKinnon (72 points; 23 goals, 49 assists) tied Tampa Bay Lightning forward Nikita Kucherov (28 goals, 44 assists) for the NHL scoring lead. He leads the League in assists. … Eleven Avalanche skaters had at least one point. … Toews had a game-high seven shots. … It was Greig’s first multigoal game in the NHL. … Colorado has six multigoal comeback wins, tied with the Dallas Stars for most in the NHL this season.