The Avalanche’s losing streak had to end sometime. Well, it did, didn’t it?
Jarome Iginla had a goal and an assist, perhaps making a case for his trade value, as the Avalanche snapped the latest streak at nine with a 5-2 win over the Winnipeg Jets on Saturday afternoon at the Pepsi Center.
“I’m trying to just find my game as far as having some fun and enjoying competing with the team,” Iginla said. “I’m not trying to think about, ‘Oh…’ No, nothing like that. I’m just trying to have a good month and find the rhythm. As a group, we lost that and I personally lost that. Confidence is a big part.”
Iginla laughed and added, “I wouldn’t say it was a big picture thing. It’s just about trying to win a game and compete and have fun. I don’t know how many more I’m going to have. I can’t go into ’em all tight, I want to enjoy them. I hope this will be a start of an upswing for our team, and personally, too.”
Iginla got his seventh goal of the season on a power play only 5:27 into the first period. It wasn’t his usual blast from the top of the left circle on the power play, but on a wrist shot, albeit from his favorite spot.
Matt Nieto scored twice, the second an empty-netter, Carl Soderberg and Nathan MacKinnon also had goals for Colorado and Calvin Pickard had 22 saves against his hometown team. In addition, Matt Duchene had three assists for Colorado. Adam Lowry had both Winnipeg goals.
The game got heated midway through the third period when Avalanche defenseman Nikita Zadorov — who delivered several hits in the game — leveled star Jets center Mark Scheifele and avenging Jets defenseman Jacob Trouba jumped Zadorov, who turtled. Zadorov drew a charging minor and a fighting major, Trouba an instigator minor, a fighting major and a 10-minute misconduct.
“I would fight him if I turned,” Zadorov said. “He jumped me from behind and I went down right away. Next time, I’m going to be aware where the guys are. I’m going to turn and fight him. I have no problem to fight anyone who wants to challenge me. It’s not like how it’s been 10 years ago, like after every hit you have to fight, right? Some guys on the team, they have to step up. I think Trouba did a good job. If (Duchene) got the same hit, I would do the same thing, I would jump the guy. It’s part of the game, you have to protect your players, you have to protect your best players and Scheifele is one of their best players.”
Zadorov said of the hit itself: “I saw him with his head down and I just tried to put on the brakes and tried to step up. I think I caught him cleanly. Good thing he didn’t get injured. I don’t want to see him injured, but it’s a hockey play.”
Duchene had his first three-point game since Oct. 20, when he had two goals and an assist in a win at Tampa Bay.
“It was great,” Duchene said of the win. “I think that was the first time in a long, long time we felt like we were a good NHL hockey team. We kind of showed why we had success early on in the season. It might make things even more frustrating because we can show what we can do. We showed what we can do tonight, we beat a team that’s desperate to stay in the playoff run and that’s not an easy thing to do. We did a lot of good things, everyone pulled their weight tonight.”
Nieto’s first goal broke a 2-2 at 8:03 of the second period and Soderberg’s fifth of the season at 2:04 of the third put the Avalanche up by two. No lead is comfortable for this team of late, but this one stood up.
Box score:
Tyson Barrie (lower-body injury) missed the game, and that led to Francois Beauchemin playing a workhorse 28:35 on the blue line and newcomer Mark Barberio, claimed on waivers from Montreal Thursday, logging 20:31.
