The Carolina Hurricanes lost 6-2 to the Montreal Canadiens in their last game before facing the Avalanche. Given how badly they were outplayed and how much the Habs were able to take control, team captain Jordan Staal already had the Avs on his mind when he was interviewed postgame.
“If we play like that, we’re going to lose 20-1,” Staal told reporters. “It’s an exceptional team coming in, best in the league, and they’re going to make us look like an AHL team if we don’t show up and play and defend.”
For two periods, the Hurricanes didn’t let their guard down. But then the third period happened. The Avs did the thing they’ve done to several teams over the past three months.
Carolina was outplayed, outmatched, and couldn’t defend against the top dogs. The result? Four goals against, three of which came in the first 7:30, and a 5-3 Avalanche triumph in regulation on the road.
Some teams use third-period magic to make late comebacks. The Avs don’t do that. They often get their goals early. In this case, they got two goals before the third period was two minutes old. It allowed them an opportunity to use the other 18 minutes to win a game rather than play catch-up. And that’s what they did.
READ MORE: Postgame Wrap: Avalanche Score 4 in Third Period, Defeat Carolina Hurricanes 5-3
10 Takeaways
1. The Avs are 3-2-5 when trailing after two periods. There are teams with four comeback wins in the final period, but they’ve had way more opportunities.
Detroit and the New York Rangers are both 4-13-2 when trailing at the second intermission. Dallas is 4-7-3, and the Philadelphia Flyers are 4-11-3.
Colorado has only trailed entering the third period 10 times, and has collected 11-of-20 points in those contests. Nobody else is anywhere near that points percentage.
2. Courtesy of my colleague at the Denver Post, Corey Masisak, the Avalanche are 2-2-2 in games where they’ve trailed by two goals. Think about that for a moment. They are 40 games into the season, and they have been down by two goals only six times. And the two most recent were the comeback victories in Vegas and Carolina.
3. This extends their latest winning streak to 10 games, which is their second such streak of the season. Again, we’re only 40 games in. This is remarkable stuff.
Colorado wins 10th straight, tying longest streak of season (also @NHL longest in 2025-26). @Avalanche are 4th team in @NHL history to post two 10+ game win streaks in a season
1929-30 Bruins (14, 11)
1970-71 Bruins (13, 10)
2019-20 Lightning (11, 10)
2025-26 Avalanche (10, 10) https://t.co/kDApPzLVP6
— Brendan McNicholas (@bmcnich) January 4, 2026
4. How about another big night from Nathan MacKinnon? He had three primary assists, the last of which was a beautiful set up on Brock Nelson’s second power-play goal. This is his second four-point game in a row and fourth of the season. He now has 74 points in 40 games, which is two more than Connor McDavid with two games in hand.
MacKinnon is on pace for 71 goals and 152 points.
5. I was surprised to see that MacKinnon finished with only 20:04 of ice time, and 5:36 of it was on the power play. MacKinnon played less than Martin Necas (22:44), Brock Nelson (22:28), and Valeri Nichushkin (21:01).
6. The ice time on the blueline was also a little wonky, largely because of the third-period injury scare to Devon Toews that kept him out for a few shifts. Cale Makar played 24:35 and every other defenseman was somewhere in between 16:45 (Sam Malinski) and 18:26 (Josh Manson).
7. One of the biggest reasons why Nelson is scoring so much is the confidence he has to shoot more. After last year’s trade deadline, he only had 31 shots on goal in 19 games (1.6 per game). Now, he’s at 83 in 40 games, which brings him up over two shots per game.
He had only 24 shots in his first 16 games, and 59 in the last 24. And the offense aligns with that stretch. Nelson has 15 goals and 27 points in his last 24 games.
Nelson had seven shots in this game, which led the Avs.
8. That Zakhar Bardakov penalty, when he accidently ran into the goalie, is the type of stuff that isn’t going to put him in Jared Bednar’s good graces. If you’re a rookie playing less than 10 minutes per night in an energy role, you just can’t take those kinds of penalties.
The Hurricanes scored on that power play.
9. Scott Wedgewood’s 18 wins lead the NHL. He improved to a whopping 31-5-5 since joining the Avalanche 13 months ago.
10. Gabe Landeskog got his first goal in nine games. It felt like he was in a bit of an offensive slump, but then I went back and ran the numbers. In those eight games without a goal, Landeskog had six assists. Add in the goal before the drought and the goal in Carolina, and Landeskog has eight points in his last 10 games with a +9 rating.
