{"id":429811,"date":"2026-01-25T23:35:07","date_gmt":"2026-01-25T23:35:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/429811\/"},"modified":"2026-01-25T23:35:07","modified_gmt":"2026-01-25T23:35:07","slug":"avalanche-4-1-maple-leafs-jan-25-2026-game-recap","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/429811\/","title":{"rendered":"Avalanche 4-1 Maple Leafs (Jan 25, 2026) Game Recap"},"content":{"rendered":"

TORONTO — \u2014 Brock Nelson<\/a> scored twice in a 1:12 span in the first period and sealed his fifth career hat trick with an empty-netter in the Colorado Avalanche<\/a>‘s 4-1 victory over the Toronto Maple Leafs<\/a> on Sunday.<\/p>\n

Jack Drury<\/a> also scored to help NHL-leading Colorado improve to 35-6-9. MacKenzie Blackwood made 32 saves.<\/p>\n

Colorado became the fourth team in NHL history with six or fewer regulation losses through 50 games, joining the 1979-80 Philadelphia Flyers<\/a> (35-3-12), 1943-44 Montreal Canadiens<\/a> (38-5-7) and 1975-76 Canadiens (36-6-8).<\/p>\n

The last team with at least 77 points through 50 contests was the 2022-23 Boston Bruins<\/a> (38-7-5), who went on to set the NHL record for wins in a season with 65.<\/p>\n

Max Domi<\/a> had a late power-play goal for Toronto, and Joseph Woll<\/a> stopped 33 shots. The Maple Leafs are 24-19-9.<\/p>\n

The Maple Leafs had a 4-3 overtime victory in Denver on Jan. 12, but have dropped six of seven (1-4-2), including an ugly 0-3-1 start to their current five-game homestand following an 8-0-2 run.<\/p>\n

Colorado became just the fourth team in NHL history with six or fewer regulation losses through 50 games, joining the 1979-80 Philadelphia Flyers (35-3-12), 1943-44 Montreal Canadiens (38-5-7) and 1975-76 Canadiens (36-6-8).<\/p>\n

The last team with at least 77 points through 50 contests was the 2022-23 Boston Bruins (38-7-5), who went on to set the NHL record for wins in a season with 65.<\/p>\n

Nelson opened the scoring at 6:19 of the first on a 2 on 1 before adding his second just over a minute later on a sneaky pass off the stick of Artturi Lehkonen<\/a> from behind Woll\u2019s net. He has 27 goals this season.<\/p>\n

Nelson tied Alex DeBrincat<\/a> and Kyle Connor<\/a> \u2014 both with eight \u2014 for the third-most 25-goal seasons among active American players. The list is led by Patrick Kane<\/a> (11) and Toronto captain Auston Matthews<\/a> (10).<\/p>\n

Up next <\/p>\n

Avalanche: At Ottawa on Wednesday night.<\/p>\n

Maple Leafs: Host Buffalo on Tuesday night.<\/p>\n

——<\/p>\n

AP NHL: https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/nhl<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TORONTO — \u2014 Brock Nelson scored twice in a 1:12 span in the first period and sealed his…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":429812,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[66],"tags":[385,99],"class_list":["post-429811","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-nhl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/429811","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=429811"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/429811\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/429812"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=429811"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=429811"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=429811"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}