Mittelstadt breaks tie in 3rd, Avalanche top Jets for 5th straight win

DENVER -- Casey Mittelstadt scored the go-ahead goal at 7:22 of the third period, and the Colorado Avalanche extended their winning streak to five games with a 5-2 victory against the Winnipeg Jets at Ball Arena on Tuesday.

Mittelstadt gave the Avalanche a 3-2 lead when he deflected Josh Manson’s shot from the point just above the crease. It was his first goal since Nov. 18, a span of 19 games.

“I think it's been well documented. Obviously, it hasn't been a great stretch,” Mittelstadt said. “So it was good. Obviously, I feel like that's how usually you get your first one after a while. It was a heck of a play by [Josh Manson], and I'm just happy that it was at a good moment for the team, and a big win for us.”

Mikko Rantanen scored to extend his point streak to 11 games, and Artturi Lehkonen and Devon Toews also scored for Colorado (23-15-0), which has won nine of 11. Manson had two assists, and Mackenzie Blackwood made 20 saves.

“They're a good team. I mean, that's why they're sitting where they are in the standings,” Avalanche coach Jared Bednar said. “It’s earned, in my opinion. So you got to play the right way and you got to be disciplined. We talked about our discipline this morning. Didn't take a penalty the whole game. I thought we did a nice job there. We were highly competitive without reaching, using our legs to check. It's a good, solid game.”

Jonathan Drouin had two assists for Colorado in his return after missing 16 games with an upper-body injury.

“I thought he skated really well. I think there's plays throughout the game, I probably could pick a handful, that he'd generally execute on that he didn't tonight, but that's usually pretty typical,” Bednar said. “He looked like he had pretty good hands and pretty good feel and was doing all the right things on the defensive side and on the offensive side. Just like the last little bit of finishing touch on some of his execution wasn't quite there, but he's missed a lot of time. I expected that.”

Rasmus Kupari and Gabriel Vilardi scored for the Jets (27-11-1), who had won four straight and were coming off a 3-0 win against the Nashville Predators on Monday. Eric Comrie made 33 saves.

“We knew we were going to be in for one against a well-rested team, but you know what, we’ve never used that excuse,” Winnipeg coach Scott Arniel said. “I liked the way that we battled back. Every time we got down one, we battled back. Any time you can go into the third period tied 2-2 in this rink, you hope that you can come out on the right side of it, and we didn’t.”

Lehkonen gave Colorado a 1-0 lead at 11:51 of the first period, deflecting Manson’s shot from just inside the blue line while taking contact from Jets defenseman Logan Stanley.

Kupari tied it 1-1 at 10:20 of the second period when he finished Morgan Barron’s crossing pass at the right side of the crease on the rush.

“[Neal Pionk] just made a nice quick up to me. I thought I kind of got a step on my defenseman and Rasmus jumped on the ice and drove to the back post and I heard him yelling,” Barron said. “It was good for him to finish that one.”

Toews put the Avalanche back ahead 2-1 at 16:37. He whiffed on his initial shot, but his second attempt went off the stick of Comrie and snuck in five-hole.

Vilardi tied it 2-2 at 18:32 off Stanley’s centering pass, which was deflected by Lehkonen and landed in the crease.

“With three [games] in four nights, when you’re traveling, it’s [about] trying to make sure that you do the right things at the right times, and I thought that we did a lot of that to get ourselves in that position,” said Arniel. “We had a lot of chances, a lot of looks there ourselves to maybe get ahead, but at the end of the day, it just wasn’t enough.”

Rantanen made it 4-2 with an empty-net goal at 18:31 of the third period. He has 19 points (six goals, 13 assists) during his streak.

Ross Colton also scored into an empty net at 19:53 for the 5-2 final.

Avalanche forward Valeri Nichushkin left the game in the second period with a lower-body injury and did not return.

“He'll get evaluated, I'm sure, tonight, tomorrow,” Bednar said. “It [stinks] because, like we talked about, [we’re] just trying to get deeper through our lineup, and I feel like the guys that are playing are giving us everything they got, but we just constantly have [injuries].”

Jets defenseman Dylan DeMelo also left the game at 16:01 of the third period after blocking a shot and did not return.

“He got hit with that shot. He got hit on the inside of the leg,” said Arniel.

NOTES: Nathan MacKinnon had an assist to finish the 2024 calendar year with 143 points (46 goals, 97 assists) in 83 games. He became the fifth different player in the past 35 years to record 143 or more regular-season points in a calendar year (Connor McDavid (2021 and 2022), Jaromir Jagr (1995 and 1999), Mario Lemieux (1989 and 1992), and Wayne Gretzky (1989 and 1991). … With the win, the Avalanche became the third team in NHL history to post 50-plus regular-season wins in four straight years (Edmonton, four from 1983-86) and Montreal (four from 1975-78).