Recap: Avalanche dismantle Blues 5-0 at Ball Arena

1 month ago  /  Mile High Hockey

John A. Babiak


The game was over after 20 minutes of play. After a long trip in the east the new-look Colorado Avalanche returned home to face the St. Louis Blues and were looking to get back into the win column and make up ground in the Western Conference playoff chase. With a dominant 5-0 win over the Blues it is a good start on a short homestand to close out the final five games before the upcoming Four Nations break.
The Game
Briefly opening the game with a rough shift the Avalanche shifted momentum in their favor and got the game’s opening goal. Jonathan Drouin knocked a bouncing out of the air and tipped it past Blues netminder Joel Hofer at 4:57. The party was just getting started as Martin Necas introduced himself to the crowd at Ball Arena with an individual effort goal at 7:39.
Where the team really found life was in the power play cashing in twice before the end of the first period. First from Jonathan Drouin at 14:43 and then the second saw Cale Makar cash in at 17:25. With a 4-0 lead and 21 shots on goal through the first 20 minutes of play, the Avalanche were in complete control.
After the excitement of the first period, the goals dried up and the physically started to show up in the game with some attempted pushback from the Blues. The shots were more even, in favor of Colorado just 9-8 but they didn’t give an inch on the scoreboard.
In the third period it was clear both teams were hoping to just run the clock out at this point and they almost achieved the feat of concluding the game without anything else happening. But then Joel Kiviranta decided he wanted to get in on the scoresheet and jumped on a loose puck at 12:21 to put Colorado up by five. And that’s how the contest ended, a 5-0 Avalanche victory and 19-save shutout for Makenzie Blackwood.

Takeaways
With the Dallas Stars also winning this evening the Avalanche didn’t make up immediate ground in the playoff race but the two points will help start to close the gap from a wild card spot to one of the division seeds. It will be a busy next couple of months of scoreboard watching as the teams in the Central Division jockey for position.
The boxscore always contains some underplayed storylines. Tonight’s is despite factoring in on the game’s first goal, the “second” line ended up with the lowest time on ice in this contest with a team-low Juuso Parssinen at 9:38 and Casey Mittelstadt at 10:21. The game was all but over early but each saw just four shifts in the second period. Something to monitor moving forward.
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