The game in Nashville may not have gone the way the Colorado Avalanche would have liked, but it was still a historic night for one skater in burgundy.
Rookie defenseman Andrei Mironov, a 23-year-old hailing from Moscow, notched his first goal in the National Hockey League. By that point, though, the Avs were already down 5-0. The score didn’t influence the outcome, but the team’s new charge can now say he’s gotten one major milestone out of the way for his NHL career.
Three minutes later, Mironov earned his second point of the night as he helped assist in T.J. Compher’s goal to draw the final score of the game.
For much of the first period, the Avs held steady on defense, aside from a minor slip-up when it allowed Craig Smith to score on a power play with just 45 seconds left to gain the 1-0 advantage heading into the intermission.
In the second, the Predators completely devoured the Avs as they increased their lead to three goals with two back-to-back scores from Colton Sissons and Anthony Bitetto midway through.
Nashville’s Mattias Ekholm slid the puck past goalie Semyon Varlamov to put the first nail in the coffin nearly eight minutes into the third period. Four minutes later, Nashville’s Viktor Arvidsson secured the second nail as he complemented the offense with his own score.
The Avalanche couldn’t get much of anything going on offense falling, 5-2. The defense, for its part, wasn’t spectacular either, and Semyon Varlamov struggled in the net as he mustered only a .792 save percentage on 24 shots on goal (19 saves).
On the other side of the rink, Pekka Rinne shined for Nashville with 29 saves on 31 attempts (.935).
The Avs dropped to 9-8-1 on the season and continued on their downward spiral of late. Colorado has lost four of their last five matchups.
The Avs return to action at Detroit on Sunday, Nov. 19 at 4 p.m.