If Thursday night was a Stanley Cup Final preview, sign Avs fans up.
Only with a different outcome.
New York beat Colorado 3-2 in a shootout at Ball Arena, giving the Rangers two extra-time wins over Colorado this year, in addition to sending the Avs to back-to-back losses for the first time in over a month.
Vincent Trocheck scored the game-winner in the shootout for the Rangers as the Avs were unable to find the net on their two shots. In the process, Nathan MacKinnon’s point streak ended at 35 straight games at home, and 19 games overall.
“It was a good, tight-checking hockey game,” Avs head coach Jared Bednar said. “It was hard to create offense. … We had our chances to win it at the end, and we didn’t capitalize, and their goalie made some saves.
“When it goes to a shootout, might as well flip a coin.”
The opening period foretold the tight, well-played hockey game to come between two of the NHL’s best teams — and what could be a potential championship series matchup. New York entered the night in first place in the Eastern Conference as the first team in the league to 100 points, while the Avs sat in third place in the Western Conference with 97 points.
Both teams took six shots and killed a penalty while playing to a 0-0 draw after the opening 20 minutes as the home crowd dueled its chants against the sizable New York fanbase in attendance.
“Tonight’s game was definitely a step in the right direction compared to the last game (a 2-1 loss to Montreal),” defenseman Cale Makar said. “There was no lack of effort tonight in a lot of different areas. We gave them minimal scoring opportunities for the most part.”
In the second period, Alexandar Georgiev put on a goaltending clinic while keeping New York off the board. At 5:39 into the frame, he stuffed Artemi Panarin’s wrist shot in a breakaway, deflecting the puck with his leg pad that led the Ball Arena crowd to chant his name.
A couple minutes later, Georgiev made another impressive save to maintain the scoreless stalemate. This time, the Russian denied Chris Kreider, who had another clean look from the faceoff circle but his slap-slot searing toward the top shelf was sent out of play by Georgiev’s blocker.
“Those two big saves (in the second) were great,” Bednar said. “I like the way (Georgiev) played a lot.”
At the other end of the ice, Colorado had several chances, but Igor Shesterkin kept turning them away until the Avs finally lit the lamp with 32 seconds left in the period.
On that play, Josh Manson fed a pass up-ice to Brandon Duhaime. Then Duhaime produced an impressive assist when he out-hustled his defender down the right side of the ice, leaning against him while maintaining control of the puck, and then spun and zipped a pass back to a wide-open Casey Mittelstadt near the faceoff circle.
Mittelstadt didn’t miss, burying a wrister in the bottom left shelf to give Colorado a 1-0 advantage in a highlight play finished off by two of the team’s recent trade acquisitions.
But it didn’t take long for the Rangers to respond in the third period, breaking up Georgiev’s shutout with Kaapo Kakko’s goal. The winger corralled a loose puck behind the left side of the net, and his wrister hit Georgiev’s back and rolled softly into the goal to make it 1-1 less than three minutes into the third.
“We pop a rebound back into the slot and then they score from behind the net,” Bednar said. “I wasn’t real happy about that.”
About six minutes later, the Rangers took the lead on a power play goal. Panarin’s wrister from near the blue line hit off Vincent Trocheck in front of the net, and Kreider was right there for the easy put-back on the right side.
Bednar challenged the goal on the premise that Trocheck’s assist might have been a hand pass, as it appeared Panarin’s shot glanced off his glove, but the officials disagreed. Colorado was assessed a two-minute bench minor for delay of game, but it didn’t come back to bite the Avs, who killed the penalty.
“I’m positive it hit his glove, but I think there’s more to (the rule) than that,” Bednar said. “It hits his glove and goes over to the other player — (I felt) it might (have been) intentional.”
A few minutes later, Colorado struck back with Devon Toews’s slapshot from near the blue line that was stopped by Shesterkin, but then was deflected by a Rangers defender and rolled under the goalie’s leg to make it 2-2. To the naked eye, the goal appeared to be thanks to a deflection by Mikko Rantanen, with Toews and MacKinnon getting assists. But it was officially ruled otherwise.
That would’ve extended MacKinnon’s point streak to 36 games, four short of Wayne Gretzky’s record 40-game run in 1988-89 with the Kings. Bednar said the Avs will review the replay and consider appealing the scoring decision to the league. So there is a chance, however small, MacKinnon’s second-longest-ever point streak isn’t actually dead.
“There is a process,” Bednar said. “You can have (the league) look at it, and if there is video proof there was an assist, you can get one (retroactively).”
Both teams pressed at the end of the third, but neither could find the net then, or in the three-on-three overtime.
In conjunction with the Thursday shootout victory, New York also beat Colorado in overtime on Feb. 5, 2-1 at Madison Square Garden. The teams also played two shootout games last season, splitting those contests.
“There were a lot of good pieces to our game tonight, but that’s a really good team, and it’s one of those nights where we’ve got to capitalize on a couple different (chances) and find ways to get the puck into the net,” Makar said.
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