The Colorado Avalanche won their second straight game in convincing fashion with a 5-2 thumping of the Arizona Coyotes on Monday night in Denver. Colorado improved to 2-0-0 against Arizona on the season.
In a very rare event, the Avalanche (24-22-11) held the Coyotes (20-30-7) without a shot on goal for the entire second period. It was the first time in Avalanche history that the club held a team without a shot for a whole period. At the end of two frames, the Avalanche had five goals while the Coyotes had five shots on net.
“Never seen that,” Avalanche head coach Patrick Roy. “But again, we played well. I’d like to give credit to our D, we blocked a lot of shots.”
Going into the third period, coach Roy elected to pull Semyon Varlamov in an effort to give the starter rest and allow Reto Berra to get his first NHL action since Nov. 25. Berra allowed one goal on 10 shots.
“It was good to give a bit of a rest to Varly, he’s playing a lot of games.” Avalanche head coach Patrick Roy said.
Colorado scored the first two goals of the game in a franchise-tying 9-second span to take a 2-0 lead early in the first period.
Arizona’s Mike McKenna allowed five goals on 29 shots in his first start of the season.
With two assists, Matt Duchene eclipsed the 300-point mark for his career. Zach Redmond tied a career-high with two points, both coming in the form of first period assists.
Colorado’s special teams finally got on track as the team broke a 32-power play goalless drought when Nick Holden buried a one-timer with the man-advantage in the first period. Incidentally, Holden also scored the club’s previous power play 12 games prior. The Avs also killed off the Coyotes lone power play opportunity in the game.
Cody McLeod picked up his 100th career point by burying his own rebound at 2:54 of the first period. Paul Carey – who was recalled from the Lake Erie Monsters on Feb. 13 – registered his first career point with an assist on the goal.
Matt Duchene won the ensuing center-ice faceoff and fired up the ice with Jarome Iginla – who made a spinning pass to Duchene for a one-timed backhand goal. Iginla and Duchene each have three points in two games against the Coyotes this season.
Following a first period timeout by Coyotes coach Dave Tippett, Oliver Ekman-Larsseon scored his league-leading 17th goal of the season by a defenseman with a slap shot from the blue line.
Tyson Barrie gave the Avalanche a three-goal lead with his seventh of the season off of a beautiful backdoor pass by Iginla at 7:28 of the second stanza. The assist was Iginla’s second of the game and his team-leading 40th point of the season.
Gabriel Landeskog made it 5-1 with his third goal in two games against the Coyotes this season on a nifty passing play by his linemates – Ryan O’Reilly and Nathan MacKinnon.
“It’s a good team effort,” coach Roy said. “I was very happy with the way the team responded tonight. We worked hard and we put pressure on their D.”
The Avalanche complete their four-game homestand when the Los Angeles Kings come to town on Wednesday.
Nathan is a staff writer for Mile High Sports. He can be reached on Twitter at @TheRealNatron.
