Avalanche Game 70 Recap: Elite 8

The Colorado Avalanche have reached the playoffs for six straight years, and a seventh is very inevitable. The Avs are on a big time roll--winning seven straight games, including sweeping a four game road trip in Western Canada and St. Louis. Following this stretch, the Avs returned to home sweet home--Ball Arena--and our opponents: the Columbus Blue Jackets. This is the first of two meetings against Columbus, and the first time the two teams are facing off on American soil since the 2021-22 season.

The goalie matchup was Alexandar Georgiev vs Elvis Merzlikins, and this game was quiet from the start. That would change. Anyway, the Jackets did rush Georgiev with a big-time scramble, and it cashed in. Damon Severson made it 1-0 for Columbus, with the assists coming from Johnny Gaudreau and Boone Jenner. For Columbus, that's where the positives ended, and I mean all of them. The Avs took over in shots, and that included Cale Makar tying it up in the heart of the period. Colorado got the first power play, but that got killed off. The PP contributed to the Avs' rise in shots, but the period ended with the score tied at one.

From that point on, it was all Avs all the time. Sounds like the intro at a radio station, but it's true. Ross Colton gave the Avs our first lead, and Mikko Rantanen tipped one in just under 90 seconds later. It was 3-1 just like that. Columbus thought they had cut their deficit to one goal, but a hand pass was called, and the goal was negated. The second period was a clean one; no penalties from either side. The Avs, at one point, had a four-to-one shots ratio in our favor, but it was still just a two goal game.

Once the third period started, all attention turned to Nathan MacKinnon. MacKinnon was on a historic home points streak; he has at least one point in all of the Avs' home games. Entering the third period of this game, MacKinnon was not on the score sheet. That changed with one breakaway. MacKinnon broke away and put it in past Elvis. The streak continues on! This game was over, but the Avalanche don't just kill teams. We salt the bones and set them ablaze. The salt came via another Mikko Rantanen goal, this time on the power play, and the fire came from a goal from Valeri Nichushkin. Amazing. The Avs were making Elvis Merzlikins look like prime Marc-Andre Fleury, yet we were still blowing him out. It says a lot about the team Elvis is on.

The Avalanche won, 6-1, increasing our winning streak to eight games. Even better, the Avs are back in first place in the Central Division, tied with the Dallas Stars in points, but Colorado has a game in hand. MacKinnon found himself behind Nikita Kucherov in the points race, but there's still time left in the regular season. As it stands right now, only the Vancouver Canucks are ahead of us out West, and overall, it's Vancouver, the Boston Bruins, and the New York Rangers ahead of the Avs. The Central Division race will be very interesting, especially since we still have to face Dallas and the Winnipeg Jets one more time each this season.

Before I end this recap, with the Stanley Cup Playoffs one month away, I have to talk about who the Avs would play as of this point, as well as who we'd play in past formats. Right now, the Avs are the #1 team in the Central and the #2 team in the West, and we would face the Nashville Predators (the #1 Wild Card) at this point. If you believe in good omens, remember: we faced the Preds in Round 1 in 2022. In the "1 vs 8" format that a number of NHL fans seem to prefer, the Avs would face the Los Angeles Kings, who stand as the actual #7 team in the West. We would face the Preds in the old divisional playoff format from the 1980s/early 1990s, but in the old "1 vs 16" format that debuted in the NHL-WHA merger in 1979, the #4 Avs would face off against the #13 team in the league: the Tampa Bay Lightning. A 2022 Cup Final rematch in Round 1!

Game #70 against the Blue Jackets was the first of a five-game homestand that will end the month of March. The second game will take place on Sunday on TNT, with the Avs hosting the Pittsburgh Penguins.

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