Following a monumental trade deadline which saw the return of Nazem Kadri, the Colorado Avalanche still had a game to play. One of the most important Central Division games was on tap this Friday evening in Dallas against the Stars. Ultimately the Avalanche would win 5-4 in a shootout after numerous last second goals in a comeback affair.<\/p>\n
After a whirlwind of a day, the evening matchup between the league\u2019s two best teams didn\u2019t disappoint. At first the Avalanche got on the board with a Cale Makar power play goal but the lead didn\u2019t last long as Miro Heiskanen got Dallas their own score on the man advantage.<\/p>\n
From there the Stars proceeded to add to their lead. First from Wyatt Johnston who walk around the defense and picked a corner on Mackenzie Blackwood. It would be the Colorado goaltender who misplayed the puck behind the net which allowed the Dallas fourth line in Justin Hryckowian to take advantage and put the Stars up by two.<\/p>\n
The first period wasn\u2019t over yet, however, as the Avalanche got one last power play opportunity and Nathan MacKinnon put the puck past Jake Oettinger with one second left on the clock to cut the Dallas lead to 3-2 by the end of the first 20 minutes of play.<\/p>\n
That momentum didn\u2019t carry on for Colorado as Dallas struck first in the middle frame. Josh Manson lost a board battle and Jamie Benn was left alone in front to put Dallas up 4-2. That was the end of Blackwood\u2019s night as Scott Wedgewood took the crease in relief.<\/p>\n
Colorado still wouldn\u2019t give up, though, and Martin Ne\u010das cut the Stars\u2019 lead in half again. That\u2019s how the second period would conclude with the Stars holding a 4-3 advantage heading into the final frame.<\/p>\n
A big moment happened midway through the third period as the Avalanche killed off a Stars 5-on-3. Another missed opportunity for Dallas was when Benn could have sealed the game but missed the cage on an empty net shot. The Avalanche had new life and naturally tied the game with 13 seconds left from none other than Val Nichushkin. With a 4-4 tie the game headed to overtime.<\/p>\n
Despite the Avalanche having a few early good looks it was the Stars who held much of the possession in the extra frame. But still, nobody could get a puck past Wedgewood. And a shootout was needed to decide this game.<\/p>\n
Colorado went with the hot hand in Nichushkin and it paid off as he used his long reach to poke the puck past Oettinger. Ne\u010das took that inspiration and netted a goal doing the same. Wedgewood stopped both shots he faced and the Avalanche walked away with a 5-4 victory.<\/p>\n
Colorado clearly wants to give Blackwood the net but Wedgewood has stepped up time and time again, this time not allowing a single goal, including in the shootout, if relief. He more than earned this win, his 23rd on the season. It might make sense to keep an open mind on a goalie rotation in the playoffs since that\u2019s what\u2019s worked for the Avalanche thus far.<\/p>\n
Another big game in a rematch with the Minnesota Wild in a matinee affair at 12 p.m. MT on Sunday, March 8th nationally televised on TNT. Perhaps the return debut of Nazem Kadri on national television?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Following a monumental trade deadline which saw the return of Nazem Kadri, the Colorado Avalanche still had a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":524313,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[556],"tags":[64,63,116778,159912,575,85],"class_list":["post-524312","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-colorado-avalanche-game-coverage","tag-colorado-avalanche-recaps","tag-nhl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/524312","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=524312"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/524312\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/524313"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=524312"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=524312"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=524312"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}