Milestone on the Horizon

So far, the Colorado Avalanche's return from the Four Nations break hasn't gone well. The last two road games of the extended trip ended with regulation losses, with only one goal each. However, nothing cures any and all ills like a long homestand. Six games. That's a very good chance to climb the Central Division ladder. A maximum twelve points up for grabs. My advice is simple: get those points. First on the docket, the New Jersey Devils, one of the few teams we've shut out this year.

Mackenzie Blackwood was in net against his old team, who had Jake Allen in net. Devils were getting outshot badly, and even having the first power play of the game didn't help. Avs led 7-1 in shots at one point, and at 8:54, Artturi Lehkonen makes it 1-0 for the good guys. The assists came from Martin Necas and Nathan MacKinnon, and for the latter, that is his first point after Four Nations. At 13:10, Avs received a power play, and it became nearly a minute of 5-on-3 after a delay of game penalty by Jack Hughes. Despite having some good shots, everything was killed off. Later on, Blackwood was penalized because he played the puck outside the trapezoid, but the NJ power play was knocked off.

Avs led 1-0 after 20 minutes, and the second period was absolutely quiet. No goals, no penalties, no kidding. The third period more than made up for that. An early Avs power play leads to (guess who?!) Nathan MacKinnon making it 2-0! Necas and Cale Makar assisted. Just when I think we may blank the Devils again, they get on the board, and of course, it's Jack Hughes assisted by his brother Luke Hughes. The Avs were holding on, though, but we decided to beat the devil out of Jersey. Avs were back on the power play, and it was MacKinnon again, making it 3-1. That started the pour on. Nearly two and a half minutes later, Casey Mittelstadt made it 4-1, and 98 seconds after that, it was Logan O'Connor. Four total goals in the 3rd period! Beautiful!

We really needed this one, folks. A big blowout home win after a pair of road losses where the offense was nonexistent. Three points each from Nathan MacKinnon and Martin Necas, but regarding the former, he's closing in on a few milestones. For one, the PP goals he scored were his 99th and 100th of his career. The three points gave him 90 this season, the first player to reach 90 points this year. This is his sixth 90-point season, joining him with Joe Sakic, Peter Stastny, and Michel Goulet as the only players in Nordiques/Avalanche history to have at least six 90-point seasons. MacKinnon stands 10 points away from his third straight 100-point season (amazing that his first 100-point season came after winning the Cup), and on a larger note, he is 11 points away from reaching 1000 career points. Only Sakic and Stastny have reached 1000 points in the team's history, MacKinnon will be the third.

One more thing. A very important attribute about that night: it was the Avs' Pride Night. There are many, many reasons why I'm proud to be an Avs fan. One of them: we do Pride Nights proudly. This is especially big considering the fact that certain people are making things very difficult for the LGBT community, already more difficult than they already are for the community. In addition, we've seen clowns in the NHL have a cow when it comes to Pride Night. I have a few choice words for those backwards people, but I'll just say this: In a world full of James Reimers and Ivan Provorovs, be like the Colorado Avalanche.

Regarding the homestand, that's two points down, 10 to go. Next up, a very important four-point game against the Minnesota Wild. Boy, do we owe those bastards after they went into our house and won last month.

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