Nelson scores twice, Avalanche cruise past Senators

Brock Nelson scored his first two goals with the Colorado Avalanche, who recorded four in the first period of a 5-1 win against the Ottawa Senators at Canadian Tire Centre in Ottawa on Thursday.

Nelson was traded to the Avalanche by the New York Islanders on March 6.

“Awesome to see him get two, his first two with us,” Colorado defenseman Cale Makar said. “You can tell in the new guys, their confidence keeps going up and up, and the chemistry in the lines is starting to get there. So it's exciting, and hopefully we can keep rolling.”

Makar had a goal and an assist, and Nathan MacKinnon also scored for the Avalanche (42-25-3), who have won nine of their past 11 (9-1-1) and were playing in the second game of a back to back after losing 2-1 at the Toronto Maple Leafs on Wednesday. Jonathan Drouin and Ross Colton each had two assists, and Scott Wedgewood made 15 saves.

Colorado pulled within three points of the Dallas Stars for second place in the Central Division. Dallas has two games in hand.

“I'm really happy with it; I’ve been really happy with the way we’ve played,” Avalanche coach Jared Bednar said. “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.

“So have to be pretty happy with the effort, the competitiveness, and the execution here tonight.”

Dylan Cozens scored for the Senators (36-27-5), who have lost two straight after winning six in a row. Linus Ullmark allowed four goals on 13 shots before he was replaced by Anton Forsberg at 17:29 of the first period. Forsberg stopped 18 of 19 shots in relief.

Ottawa leads the Montreal Canadiens by three points for the first wild card into the Stanley Cup Playoffs from the Eastern Conference.

“I really liked the start of our game,” Senators coach Travis Green said. “The first seven to eight minutes, I thought [we] came out exactly how we wanted to and had a couple really good looks to go up one or 2-0, yet by the end of the period we’re down 4-0 and we’re swimming uphill a little bit.

“It’s easy to say, ‘Hey, keep playing,’ and it’s human to be down that you’re down 4-0. And it is hard. You’re not going come back many nights when you’re down 4-0 against the Colorado Avalanche.”

MacKinnon gave Colorado a 1-0 lead at 10:29 of the first period with a wrist shot from above the right circle that went under Ullmark. Drouin took the puck into the zone and dropped it to MacKinnon on the move.

Nelson extended it to 2-0 at 11:28 on a wrist shot from the left circle that beat Ullmark glove side. Sam Malinski brought the puck in and cut back at the blue line, opening Nelson up for an uncontested line toward the net, before chipping the pass forward.

“On my goal, great play by 'Sammy' jumping up in the rush here, sucking in that ‘D,’ and making a nice pass,” Nelson said during intermission. “[They] had some pressure, but we weathered it. ‘Wedgie’ stood big, and then we kind of took it over a little bit.”

Makar’s power-play goal made it 3-0 at 14:23. He scored top shelf through traffic on a wrist shot from the point.

“I felt like, other than the first five minutes, we kind of weathered the storm a little bit, and then we were able to find a way to kind of get our rhythm,” Makar said. “I thought we were pretty solid all night. For a back to back, I thought we were really good.”

Joel Kiviranta made it 4-0 at 17:29 when he located the rebound from Colton’s initial shot and scored five-hole.

“Just a couple mistakes that we can control just ended up in the back of the net,” Senators forward Brady Tkachuk said. “I don’t think the score kind of did justice of what the game was like, and it was a lot closer than that. There’s definitely a lot of things that we need to work on and improve on, but I think at this point in the season, there’s no panic.”

Nelson’s second goal of the game on the power play pushed it to 5-0 at 1:54 of the second period. He redirected Artturi Lehkonen’s shot as he cut across the crease.

Cozens cut it to 5-1 with a power-play goal at 15:59 of the third period. His snap shot from the left dot beat the glove of Wedgewood.

“Probably in their game plan that we were on a back to back and wanted to come at us fast, and we weathered it,” Wedgewood said. “Made some saves, got some rebounds to stick to me and kind of settle the boys in, and then they went to work. So until that, obviously, last goal, it was pure domination. The whole game was domination.”

NOTES: Makar (81 points; 26 goals, 55 assists) became the eighth defenseman in NHL history with three career 80-point seasons, and the fifth to do so before turning 27 years old, joining Bobby Orr (six seasons), Paul Coffey (five), Denis Potvin (four), and Ray Bourque (three). … Makar’s power-play goal was the 40th of his career, passing Sandis Ozolinsh (39) for the most by a defenseman in Avalanche/Quebec Nordiques history. … MacKinnon skated in his 200th consecutive NHL game. … Wedgewood has won his past five starts, a career best.