CHICAGO — Holiday handshakes between coaches and players were exchanged Friday night inside the visiting locker room at the United Center, after the NHL’s worst team upset one of the league’s best in another strange twist for first-year Avalanche coach Jared Bednar.
In its last game before the NHL’s three-day Christmas break, Colorado snapped an eight-period scoreless streak and then a five-game losing streak in beating the Chicago Blackhawks 2-1 in overtime. Mikko Rantanen tied it 1-1 early in the third period and Nathan MacKinnon scored 25 seconds into OT to propel the Avs into the break with just their third victory this month.
Defenseman Tyson Barrie assisted on both Avalanche goals and MacKinnon — who won it with a bar-down wrist shot from the right circle — assisted on Rantanen’s goal for a two-point night.
“That was a great effort,” Bednar said after the Avs improved to 12-20-1 (25 points). “That was a great team effort from every guy. To a man, I thought we played the way we need to play. Itap time to start building something. What better way to do it than against this team, against this goalie, in this building and under the circumstances. It says a lot about our team. Now we have to find a way to duplicate that performance and repeat it over and over again. That, to me, is the standard for our team and we have not met it enough.”
The victory came 24 hours after getting blasted 6-0 by Toronto at the Pepsi Center, and the Avs didn’t settle into their Chicago hotel until 3 a.m. Friday. Goalie Calvin Pickard, who played the last half of Thursday’s game against the Maple Leafs, had 38 saves in a sensational goaltending display at both ends.
If Blackhawks goalie Corey Crawford (32 saves) was anything less than exceptional, the Avalanche would have snapped its goal-less drought long before it approached a franchise record spanning the bad teams of the Quebec Nordiques, before they relocated to Colorado in 1995.
“It was a lot of fun, playing against one of the best goalies in the league,” Pickard said. “It seemed like it was going to take a perfect shot to beat him tonight. We had breakaways, a lot of chances, and he was making some unbelievable saves. It was nice to see Mikko tie it up there and once it was 1-1 you just had that feeling we would finish it off.”
Crawford had missed the last 10 games because of an appendectomy. “There were some positives,” Chicago coach Joel Quenneville said. “(Crawford) in the net, having him back certainly helped control things around the net. Certain players played pretty good. Some guys were ordinary. I think we needed to be better to deserve to win that game.”
Rantanen finally got a puck past Crawford early in the third period to forge a 1-1 tie. Barrie faked a shot and threw the puck at Rantanen’s stick, changing its direction and fooling Crawford. Colorado had been shut out 2-0 and 6-0 in its previous two games; the franchise record for consecutive shutout losses is two, happening six times.
The difference through two periods was Crawford’s remarkable save on Rantanen during the Avalanche’s first and only power play. At the other end, couldn’t make the same kind of save on Jonathan Toews, who scored on the power play to give Chicago a 1-0 lead. Toews swatted the puck in from midair. Otherwise, Pickard was tremendous.
Rantanen had an open net to shoot at from the left post but his tap-in was swatted away by Crawford’s paddle. The sprawling save preserved the Blackhawks’ lead and Colorado’s scoreless streak increased to eight consecutive periods.
“He robbed me once in the second period and that was bothering me,” Rantanen said. “So it was nice to get it back.”
The Avs were the better team early. They produced the game’s first eight shots and outhit Chicago 16-6 in the first period. They outshot the Hawks 13-12 despite taking the only penalty of the frame.
“We felt like we were going to get rewarded eventually,” MacKinnon said. “We finally did in the third — ‘Tys’ made a great play to Mikko and then another good play to me in overtime. It just shows that when we want to play, when we’re ready to play, we’re a very good team and can play with anybody.”
