Moose Tracks

The Colorado Avalanche's four-game homestand reached the halfway point, and so far, so good. The Avs are coming off a very awesome overtime win over the Nashville Predators on Veterans Day, and now, we were on TNT and still at home against the Los Angeles Kings. The Kings are on quite a good start this season, they've been straddling the first place fence for a good bit, and they've had quite a good start to this season.

The goaltender matchup was Alexandar Georgiev in net against our old boy, Darcy Kuemper. Still very sentimental about Kuemper; he played one hell of a role in our Stanley Cup run two years ago. Anyway, the Kings did not waste any time. 32 seconds in, Adrian Kempe makes it 1-0 for the City of Angels. So once again, the Avs did not start on time. We wouldn't have to wait a long time to tie it up; at 3:40, it was Artturi Lehkonen who evened it up, and the assists came from Mikko Rantanen and Nathan MacKinnon. Shortly after the Avs tied it, we went on the Power Play. That was killed off. No shots. We received another PP minutes later, but it became four-on-four for six seconds. No shots on our second PP, and the Kings' first (and only) PP of the game was killed off. However, Kempe would strike again later in the period to make it 2-1 for LA, and that was the score after 20 minutes.

The second period saw the Avs really look for that tie. In fact, we were the only ones looking. We received our third power play, but that got killed off. No shots in any of our three PPs. The Kings weren't able to piece shots together. Well... they weren't able to piece shots at all. Despite this, they were still leading, until Cale Makar passed the puck to a runaway Rantanen, and that resulted in a tie game. 2-2 was the score after 40 minutes, and in that second period, the Avs outshot the Kings 13-0. No Kings shots at all in that middle frame.

3rd period saw the Kings get their first shot in over 25 minutes of game time, and it also saw a sudden change in goalie for LA. So Kuemper suffered an injury, or possibly reaggravated an injury he had already, so in came David Rittich. It's ironic that those two are teammates now. I still remember Rittich (with the Predators) beating us in our last home game of the season in 2021-22, and then he was smashed in Game One of that opening series. So anyway, the Avs weren't shooting much after the change. In fact, the first shot Rittich faced was Rantanen's, and it went in. MacKinnon and Logan O'Connor had the helpers, and the Avs led for the first time in this game. An attempted breakaway was stopped by LA, and after a while, Rittich was pulled for the extra attacker. At 18:01, Rantanen completed the hat trick, and MacKinnon picked up his third assist.

Being on TNT seems to agree with Mikko Rantanen. Not only did Rantanen pick up his second hat trick of the season, both of them came in games that aired on TNT. And to think, he was on a goal scoring drought this season, yet he has a dozen so far this season. MacKinnon added three more helpers, and Georgiev won another one that came easy for him (facing no shots in the 2nd period does help). The Avalanche are back on track, and it gets much better. How? I'll tell you.

The homestand concludes on Friday against the Washington Capitals. And get this. Miles Wood, Jonathan Drouin, Valeri Nichushkin. All three players could be back with the Avalanche this Friday! Even with those three out and Lehkonen out until about a week ago, the Avs stayed afloat. With those three back? Ohhhh man!!

* * *

Thank you for reading my recap! Click the heart if you liked it, click the subscribe button for more of my stories, and feel free to comment below! Tips and pledges would also be appreciated, but only if you want to do so!