DENVER — Not many teams could play as poorly as the Avalanche did for 40 minutes and still escape with a victory. And they did it in regulation.

Despite seeing an outburst from starting goalie Alexandar Georgiev in the second period, which was sandwiched between five goals against on 22 shots, the Avs erased a two-goal deficit in the third period in front of backup Ivan Prosvetov, who entered the game in relief, to defeat the Calgary Flames 6-5 on Monday at Ball Arena.

But that wasn’t all.

Postgame remarks from superstar forward Mikko Rantanen targeted at the father of teammate Artturi Lehkonen seemingly overshadowed a much-needed triumph for the reeling Avalanche.

“There’s actually one thing where I got a lot of extra energy,” Rantenen said, his preamble to a question about him breaking out of his nine-game goal-scoring slump.

“One of our Finnish NHL players’ dad was talking shit about me in the media, that I didn’t train last summer like I used to do. He was just making things up so I think that was for him.

“If you talk shit it’s going to come back at you.”

Rantanen was referencing an interview with Ismo Lehkonen, which was published in a Finnish media outlet earlier Monday morning. The elder Lehkonen broke down several of the reasons why he feels that the Avs are struggling. Among them, he mentioned Rantanen not having a good summer and perhaps needing a mental break from hockey. There could be things lost in translation but the message was received by Colorado’s leading goal scorer and he went out of his way to respond to the popular Finnish commentator.

Not only did Rantanen make the remarks, but he came back into the dressing room when media was filtering out to ensure that the video went out. His message was captured by Altitude TV cameras — the T.V. stationed owned by the team — but they’re unable to run with it. Rantanen, with the help of the team’s PR representative, spoke with two DNVR reporters, who also had footage of the quote, to ensure they publish it.

Lehkonen has not played since suffering a neck injury on Nov. 9. He’s roughly five weeks into a 10-12 week recovery.

Moments before Rantanen spoke to media, Lehkonen was seen exiting the dressing room. It’s common practice for the scratches and injured players to leave before media filters into the dressing room so this is not out of the ordinary. But given Lehkonen’s injury status, we won’t hear from him about this for quite a while.

The Avs are scheduled to practice at 12 p.m. Tuesday at Family Sports Center. It’s likely that Rantanen or coach Jared Bednar will need to address the comments once again.

On the ice, Rantanen was as dominant as he’s been in recent memory. Bednar described him as “a horse” after his three-point performance. Rantanen had a goal, two helpers and a whopping 19 of the Avs’ 83 shot attempts in 26:19 of ice time. He scored the second of the Avs’ three third-period goals with 6:29 remaining before pitching in with an assist on the eventual game-winner from center Nathan MacKinnon 2:01 later. Rantanen also set up star defenseman Cale Makar on the power play in the second period on the Avs’ second goal.

He delivered the type of performance that’s made him one of the NHL’s top forwards.

“I thought last game was a big step in the right direction and it wasn’t to the level of what his game was tonight,” Bednar said of Rantanen. Oftentimes, when you start doing things the right way, it doesn’t just turn around overnight. You have to stick with it. You have to believe that, that will get you out of your slump.”

Prosvetov was also solid in the third period. He not only stopped all 11 shots he faced, but he was called upon to make some electric saves both before and after Colorado’s three-goal outburst. Prosvetov said he was informed about the goaltending switch more than halfway into the second intermission. He didn’t have much time to prepare but said it was something he’s used to.

“I’ve been in this spot a lot, you know, going into the games like this in the minors and in NHL as well,” Prosvetov told me while accepting a high-five as praise from teammate Valeri Nichushkin mid interview. “I played my first game like that (with Arizona) here in Colorado. My goalie partner got pulled and I had to go in.”

The Avs also had goals from Tomas Tatar, Ben Meyers and Ross Colton to go along with the tally’s from their three-headed monster.

“We just wanted to come out and play hard and play physical,” Colton said after breaking out of his own nine-game scoring slump. “Especially these last couple games, I think we’ve been playing not as physical as we wanted to.”

It felt like things had slipped away in the second period. Despite entering the frame tied 1-1, the Flames had scored four of six goals, including the last two, to build a 5-3 lead. With the game tied at 3-3, Georgiev took a swipe at former Avs forward Nazem Kadri after the whistle. It’s unclear what had upset the 27-year-old netminder, but Kadri answered back, and both received minor penalties for roughing. The Calgary Flames scored off the ensuing faceoff while playing 4-on-4 before adding another tally before the end of the period.

Despite the game being knotted up at the time of the melee, Georgiev was struggling. When Calgary scored its third goal — a saveable wrist shot from Blake Coleman that beat him — Georgiev had stopped just 11 of 14 shots.

Calgary got the scoring started after another poor turnover from the Avs’ top skaters — some of those habits that have hurt them during this recent stretch of losses. Defenseman Devon Toews’ pass was almost picked off before Rantanen eventually turned it over to Coleman. The forward fed Kadri in the slot, who wired it past Georgiev to make it 1-0 at 13:46.

The Avs answered back before the end of the period off the stick of Tatar — his first in an Avalanche uniform.

Tatar received a pass from Colton and beat goalie Dan Vladar. Colorado carried the momentum into the second period and used a powerful one-timer from Makar on the power play to take a 2-1 lead. Makar’s tally, his eighth of the year, broke a streak of 16 scoreless power plays for the Avs. Colorado was 1-for-4 on the power play and killed off both man advantages they surrendered to the Flames.

Meyers was called up earlier in the day because of an injury to Joel Kiviranta and scored in his season debut.

“I thought he was great,” Bednar said. “He’s gone down (to the AHL) and gone to work. He’s moved from center to wing. Time will tell, is that a better position for him to be able to play here? Maybe. it’s an easier job. But he’s been outstanding down there and his analytics show it, they’re off the charts in creating scoring chances and on the defending side of it.”