Recap: Colorado claws back to steal a point agianst Carolina

SB Nation

The Colorado Avalanche donned their Nordiques throwback jerseys tonight for the first time, as they took on the Carolina Hurricanes, who donned their Hartford Whaler throwbacks as well. While the Avs were

able to erase a three-goal deficet and steal a point from the Hurricanes, they would ultimately lose by a final score of 5-4 in the shootout.

Let’s take a look back at all the action from tonight.

First Period

This period would end up being a complete nightmare for Colorado. Carolina would get the scoring started, as Eric Robinson beat Scott Wedgewood from a seemingly impossible angle. There’s unfortunately not much you can do on that goal, as it probably doesn’t go in a majority of the time.

Val Nichushkin would quickly respond for Colorado after the Robinson goal. On this play, Nichushkin takes the puck in down towards the front of the goal, draws a penalty, and eventually backhands the puck past the Carolina goaltender to even this game up at 1-1.

Nichushkin’s goal would be where Colorado’s offense would end for the first period, as Carolina would go on to score three unanswered goals. First, Colorado’s power play continued to struggle, as they would give up a short-handed goal to Seth Jarvis, which would make it 2-1 for the Hurricanes.

Following that, a fluke goal would happen, as the puck bounced off of Sebastian Aho’s shin guard and wound up right behind Scott Wegewood, to put Carolina up 3-1.

Finally, Logan Stankoven would get on the board before the first period would end. Off a turnover in the Colorado zone, Stankoven would take this puck right to the front of the net, and while it looked like Wedgewood ha the puck, it would end up in the back of the net, and that would be the end of his night, as Trent Miner would take over the net.

Second Period

After that nightmare of a first period, the Avs would show some fight in the second period, as Parker Kelly would get on the board and pull Colorado within two, off of a shot from the corner from Sam Malinski.

Third Period

Martin Necas continued his absolute tear, as he would bring Colorado within one. Eerily similar to his goal last game, Necas would just put the puck on net from a near impossible angle, and somehow put that puck into the Carolina net, to make the score 4-3 in Carolina’s favor.

On their seventh man-advantage opportunity of the night, the Colorado powerplay would finally break through, as Val Nichushkin, who replaced Brock Nelson, cleaned up right on the doorstep of the Carolina net, and tied the game up at 4-4 for the Avs.

Overtime & Shootout

The two teams would exchange 4-on-3 opportunities, and this game would ultimately end in a shootout, that would see the Carolina Hurricanes come away with the extra point.

Takeaways

I just don’t know what to say about this team, to be honest. And I don’t mean that in a negative way, in fact quite the opposite. I’ve been incredibly impressed with the level of fight this team has shown, especially when they were down by three goals tonight. I don’t think it’s unfair to say that, similarly to the Utah game a couple nights ago, this was not Colorado’s best game by a long shot, which is not great to see them playing like this against another top NHL team. That being said, if that’s what your like, C or C- game looks like, and you’re still able to claw your way back and get a point out of it, you shoul feel pretty good, in my opinion. That being said, you would also love to see Colorado get ready for these games at the start, instead of having to claw their way back from multi-goal deficets in games like these. I’m confident that that will come with time as Colorado gets more comfortable as the season goes on, it is only game eight after all.