TAMPA, FLA. — The Avalanche and Tampa Bay Lightning were bad enough two years ago to wind up with the first and third choices, respectively, in the 2013 NHL entry draft and generally have experienced renaissances since.
Their Saturday night meeting at the sold-out and recently renamed Amalie Arena was at least a snapshot comparison of two franchises’ on-ice progress since those horrible seasons. It also was the first NHL meeting between the former Halifax Mooseheads linemates claimed with those picks — the Avalanche’s Nathan MacKinnon and the Lightning’s Jonathan Drouin.
PHOTOS:
This round went to the Lightning, which took a 3-2 shootout victory.
That said, Colorado was a team transformed after a shaky first period and outplayed the Lightning for much of the night. The Avs faced the first nine shots of the game and were outshot 15-5 in the first period, yet finished with a 42-31 advantage and, more important, got the game to overtime on Mac Kinnon’s goal with only 6.8 seconds remaining in regulation.
Colorado settled for the one point when the Lighting had a 2-1 advantage in the three-round shootout, with Matt Duchene scoring for Colorado, but MacKinnon and Alex Tanguay failing to beat Tampa Bay goalie Ben Bishop.
“I’m very happy with the performance of the team,” Colorado coach Patrick Roy said. “We played an outstanding game. It was probably one of our best road games of the season. … I thought we deserved to be rewarded with that goal at the end. Unfortunately for us, we had some good chances in overtime but just could not get the right shot on net.”
With the Colorado net empty in the closing stages of the third period, MacKinnon got his ninth goal of the season, and the play started with an Erik Johnson shot from the point.
“On the rebound, it was a good play by (Gabel Landeskog) to get it to me,” MacKinnon said. “I had a wide-open net, and it was definitely exciting to tie it up that late.”
MacKinnon has been struggling of late in shootouts, and his shot in this one went off Bishop’s glove and wide. Was he second-guessing his shootout choices?
BOXSCORE:
“No,” he said. “I’m just not scoring.”
Tampa Bay defenseman Anton Stralman’s shot from near the boards got through traffic and under the pads of a dropping Semyon Varlamov to give Tampa Bay a 2-1 lead at 4:08 of the third period, breaking a 1-1 tie before MacKinnon’s late goal sent the game to OT.
“I didn’t see that shot,” Varlamov said.
Ryan O’Reilly had the Avalanche’s other goal against the Denver-born, 6-foot-7 Bishop — like Varlamov a Vezina Trophy finalist last season. It came 51 seconds into the second period after O’Reilly wound up for a shot, but rather than putting the puck on net slid it to MacKinnon down low and went to the net, got a return pass and scored to complete the give-and-go.
Rather than this becoming another night when Varlamov faced a game-long barrage, Colorado tipped the ice in the second, outshooting the Lightning 20-9 and playing one of its best periods in recent memory.
“We did a lot of things right tonight,” said O’Reilly. “If we continue to do that, we’re going to win a lot of hockey games.”
