Ball Arena became Denver’s hottest New Year’s Eve party on Wednesday night, well before anyone was ready to ring in the new year.
The Colorado Avalanche finished the 2025 portion of their schedule by obliterating the St. Louis Blues, 6-1, an emphatic punctuation of what has been a surreal start to this campaign. Valeri Nichushkin had a hat trick, Nathan MacKinnon scored his 400th career goal, and Mackenzie Blackwood made 12 saves just hours after being left off the Canadian team for the 2026 Winter Olympics in Milan, Italy.
Colorado scored four goals in the opening 4:39 against Blues goaltender Jordan Binnington, who will join MacKinnon, Cale Makar and Devon Toews in Northern Italy, and the Avs a fifth goal ruled out after a challenge for goaltender interference. It was the third-fastest game to four goals scored by one team in NHL history, and the fastest since 1982.
In a season full of dominating performances, this was the pièce de résistance to date. The Avs racked up 20 shots on goal in the first period, had as many goals as the Blues had shots deep into the second period and held a 38-7 advantage with a little less than 14 minutes remaining.
The Avs are now 30-2-7 this season. They’ve won nine in a row, and are now 17-0-2 at home. With the Dallas Stars losing earlier in the evening, Colorado now has a 10-point lead not just on the second-place team in the Central Division but second in the overall league standings as well.
Even Blackwood, who had little to do most of the night, still made three excellent side-to-side saves to turn away great scoring chances for St. Louis.
Given that it was a holiday night, it felt like the Ball Arena crowd was primed to be one of the loudest of the season during warmups and the pregame lineup introductions. Then the goals started flowing, the patrons had the place rocking before the clock struck 7:30 p.m.
Nichushkin and MacKinnon alternated scoring a a pair of goals, and this game was over before the first television timeout. Nichushkin’s first goal came at the 60-second mark.
Binnington, who entered the game with an .870 save percentage, stopped Nichushkin’s first attempt cutting to the net from the right side, but the rebound eventually came back to him near the bottom of the left circle and the Blues goalie was still out of position for an easy score.
MacKinnon’s 400th goal came at 3:13. He was there near the left post to clean up a Josh Manson shot from near the half wall on the right side for an easy rebound goal. He’s the third player to score 400 goals for the franchise and the first to do entirely in Denver.
That came 51 seconds after a Colorado goal for Makar was waived off when the Blues challenged for interference after MacKinnon had been the in crease just before the shot. He scored later in the shift, anyway.
And Nichushkin scored on the shift after that to make it 3-0 at 3:26. It was yet another rebound and another play where Binnington was scrambling. That was10 goals this season for Nichushkin. He added No. 11 with 3:54 remaining in the third period that sent the hats flying onto the ice.
MacKinnon scored No. 401, and No. 34 on the season, at 4:39. Martin Necas teed him up for a one-timer in the left circle.
Even the beleaguered power play got up off the mat against the lifeless Blues. Brock Nelson ripped a one-timer from Makar in the right circle past Binnington at 9:41 of the middle period to push Colorado’s lead to 5-0.
It was Nelson’s 16th goal, and 10th in his past 15 games. Nelson will find out if he’s joining the trio of Canadiens, Necas, captain Gabe Landeskog and likely Artturi Lehkonen in Italy when the United States team is announced Friday morning on NBC’s “The Today Show.”
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