Things are going so well for the Colorado Avalanche right now that Devon Toews made as many saves during the second period Thursday night as the opposing goaltender.
The Avs blew this one open with an efficient three goals on five shots in the second, en route to a 4-0 victory against the Los Angeles Kings at Ball Arena. Martin Necas had a pair of goals among his three points, while Cale Makar and Jonathan Drouin had multi-point games as well to help Avs cruise to their 11th straight win at home.
Mackenzie Blackwood made 22 saves in another quality start, and Toews was there to turn aside two attempts with his skate during one of the Kings’ rare Grade-A chances to score.
Colorado is now 12-1-1 since Jan. 26, with seven wins against teams currently in playoff position. The Avs have outscored their foes 60-26 during this run, with the only regulation loss coming in Toronto after two fluky goals against in an otherwise dominant performance.
Not only are the Avs the hottest team in the NHL over the past month, they’ve become the league’s best cooler as well. The Kings had won nine of their past 10 games before this one.
Ottawa had won six of seven before Colorado went to the Canadian capital and stomped the Senators. Montreal was on an 8-1-3 run to move into the second wild card spot in the East before the Avs dominated them for approximately 50 minutes and eventually won in overtime.
Colorado scored on its first two shots of the second period, 92 seconds apart, to take control of this contest.
Makar set up Logan O’Connor on the first one, blowing by Kings defenseman Joel Edmundson’s attempt to skate with him around the perimeter of the zone. Los Angeles had an obvious chance to get the puck out of danger earlier in the shift, but O’Connor took it off a Kings player attempting to skate it out.
Necas made it 2-0 at 6:57 of the second. Samuel Girard’s shot from the left point missed the target, but Necas was able to collect it behind the net and then stuff it inside the right post before Kings goalie David Rittich could get across.
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Makar and Necas teamed up for the third goal of the period on the power play. With Nathan MacKinnon providing a screen in front, Necas blasted a one-timer past Rittich for his 26th goal of the season.
Necas now has 10 goals and 25 points in 24 games since arriving in the blockbuster trade earlier this season from Carolina. The Avs now have four guys with 25-plus goals on the roster (MacKinnon, Makar, Necas and Artturi Lehkonen), plus Valeri Nichushkin has 19 in just 35 games.
The multi-point night for Makar gives him 84 for the season, 15 more than any other defenseman in the league. It’s also 500 for his career, including the playoffs. He’s the third-fastest defensemen in NHL history to 500 regular season plus playoff points, behind only Bobby Orr and Paul Coffey.
At one point during the third period, a few Avs fans in the upper bowl at Ball Arena started chanting “we want the Cup.” After a roller-coaster ride for much of this season, the past month should have the patrons here believing that’s possible.
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