The Avalanche secured a 7-2 victory when they hosted the Detroit Red Wings on Wednesday, March 6th, at the Ball Arena. Cale Makar scored his first career hat trick, and Jean-Luc Foudy scored his first NHL career goal. Nathan MacKinnon also extended his season-opening home point streak to 31 games, giving him 69 points (26 goals, 43 assists) when he scored a goal and recorded three assists. Detroit has lost three games straight following a six-game win streak that had been put to an end when they lost 5-3 against the New York Islanders on Thursday, February 29th.
Red Wings lineup against the Avalanche:
DeBrincat – Veleno – Kane
Rasmussen – Compher – Raymond
Fabbri – Fischer – Perron
Kostin – Copp – Sprong
Walman – Seider
Chiarot – Petry
Maatta – Gostisbehere
Lyon
Reimer
Avalanche lineup against the Red Wings:
Lehkonen – MacKinnon – Rantanen
Parise – Colton – Drouin
Wood – Wagner – Kiviranta
Cogliano – Foudy – Pavel
Toews – Makar
Girard – Manson
Johnson – Jones
Georgiev
Annunen
Robby Fabbri began the scoring on the power play, early into the first period at 18:12 to give Detroit the lead. He recorded his 16th of the season when a one-timer from Alex DeBrincat went into the net off his skate. At 14:45, Cale Makar scored his 15th goal of the season to tie the game 1-1. Makar, who was just inside the blue line, sent a wrist shot that deflected off Andrew Copp’s stick and went in past Alex Lyon’s right leg. David Perron gave the Red Wings the 2-1 lead later into the first, grabbing his own rebound as he was alone in front, scooping a wrist shot to the far side. With only 2:53 remaining, Nathan MacKinnon got his 40th to tie it back up on the power play. Mikko Rantanen sent a centering one-touch pass to MacKinnon, who put it underneath Lyon’s glove.
Giving the Avalanche a 3-2 lead at 11:11 for his 10th goal of the season – Atturi Lehkonen put in a one-timer off a pass from Mikko Rantanen, who had been behind the net. Cale Makar retrieved the rebound of Rantanen’s original shot and slipped in a backhand shot through the five-hole. With 33 seconds left in the second, Makar finished the hat trick to give Colorado the 5-2 lead on the power play. He directed a wrist shot that trickled through Alex Lyon from inside the blue line.
Jonathan Drouin pushed it to 6-2 at 12:48 of the final frame after finishing a 2-on-1 with Miles Wood. Drouin scored with a high shot to the far side at the left circle for his 12th goal of the season. Later on in the third, scoring his first NHL career goal, Jean-Luc Foudy went for the 7-2 final at 4:35 in his 10th game.
Cale Makar on his hat trick in Colorado’s 7-2 win: “It’s pretty cool, I’ve never really had an experience like that in my career, obviously. Just take that in, and I think the bigger thing is we got the win, so that’s kind of all that matters to me.”
Notes:
– Nathan MacKinnon’s home-point streak is tied with Bryan Trottier (1981-82) and Mario Lemieux (1995-96) for the fourth-longest home point streak in NHL history. Wayne Gretzky owns this NHL record for the longest season-opening home point streak at 40 games (1988-89).
MacKinnon is the fourth player in Avalanche/Nordiques history to have three or more 40-goal seasons… (Michel Goulet, seven; Joe Sakic, five; Peter Stastny, five)
– Mikko Rantanen recorded four assists, and Jonathan Drouin had a goal and an assist. Rantanen, with 52 assists, became the second Finland-born player in NHL history to achieve three consecutive 50-assist seasons. Jari Kurri had nine consecutive seasons, 1981-90.
– Cale Makar is the fourth defenseman in Avalanche/Nordiques history to score a hat trick… Sandin Ozolinsh, December 6th, 1999; Uwe Krupp, March 1st, 1995; Bryan Fogarty, December 1st, 1990. This was also Makar’s ninth multi-goal game, he passed Ozolinsh for the most by a defenseman in franchise history… he tied Ozolinsh when he had his fourth four-point game, the franchise record.
Makar became the fastest active defenseman to reach 80 goals (he has 82 currently)… the last defenseman to score this many before his 300th game was Phil Housley, who accomplished this in 296 games on March 19th, 1986.
– Cale Makar, Nathan MacKinnon, and Mikko Rantanen have become the first three Avalanche players to all have four or more points in a game since Peter Forsberg, Valeri Kamensky, and Claude Lemieux did it on November 18th, 1997.
– This was Coach Jared Bednar’s 600th NHL game
– The Avalanche acquired both forward, Casey Mittelstadt, and defenseman, Sean Walker in separate trades on Wednesday, March 6th.
– Alexandar Georgiev made a total of 27 saves for Colorado, and Alex Lyon allowed five on 40 before he was replaced by James Reimer at the start of the third period, who made 12 saves.
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