TORONTO — After a long and inconsistent homestand, the dominant version of the Colorado Avalanche returned Sunday afternoon.

Brock Nelson scored a hat trick, including goals on back-to-back shifts, and Mackenzie Blackwood made 32 saves as the Avs handled the Toronto Maple Leafs, 4-1, in an impressive performance at Scotiabank Arena.

Colorado finished its longest homestand of the season at 3-2-2, and came into this contest with losses in six of nine (3-4-2), but this looked a little more like the team that stormed to the top of the NHL with a historic first half of the season.

“It’s a great start to the road trip,” Avs coach Jared Bednar said. “I really liked our defending details, the commitment to play the right way without the puck to get above checks and check the puck back. It was a really good effort on that side of it.

“It was a pretty mature game for our guys, and something we were lacking a little bit of on our homestand at times. We put a full 60 (minute effort) together.”

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Nelson put the Avs in control with a pair of goals just 72 seconds apart. Cale Makar redirected a Leafs outlet pass near the Colorado blue line to Nelson, who quickly went the other way with Nathan MacKinnon on a 2-on-1.

Instead of passing to MacKinnon, Nelson buried a hard wrist shot from the right circle behind Leafs goalie Joseph Woll at 6:19 of the first. Nelson took a shift both before and after a television timeout with MacKinnon and Martin Necas, and it paid off with his 25th goal of the season.

No. 26 came on his next shift, back with his typical linemates. Nelson tipped a point shot from Makar wide, and then Valeri Nichushkin made a nifty pass to himself to control the corresponding loose puck. He got to Artturi Lehkonen behind the net, and then Nelson one-timed a pass from Lehkonen from a tight angle off Woll’s body and in.

Nelson added an empty-net tally with 2:19 remaining for the fifth hat trick of his career and first with the Avalanche.

That is 27 goals in 50 games for Nelson this season. He had 26 in 80 games last year between his time with the New York Islanders and the Avs after a March 7 trade. The soon-to-be United States Olympian also has 21 goals in the past 26 games — only Edmonton’s Connor McDavid has more in that span.

“There’s a lot of confidence in his game right now,” Makar said of Nelson. “He’s a shooter and when he’s shooting … he’s going to find ways to score goals. He’s finding good spots and guys are getting him the puck and he’s putting them in the back of the net. It’s fun.”

Jack Drury made it a 3-0 lead late in the second period. Nearly every Avs player on the ice touched the puck on a pretty breakout play, and it ended with Drury getting plenty of time to pick a spot from the left wing for his eighth goal of the season with just 1:07 before the break.

This was a big bounce-back game for Blackwood. He missed time with a lower-body injury and his first two games back — losses to Nashville and Philadelphia — were statistically his worst two performances of the season. He allowed 11 goals on 47 shots combined across those two contests, but was rock solid Sunday in Toronto, particularly in the first half of the second period when Toronto made its biggest push.

“I was mad at myself (Friday night after the Philadelphia loss),” Blackwood said. “It’s frustrating not doing what you know you can do. So yeah, it’s nice when you put it all together and keep it going.”

Blackwood had a pair of saves on Auston Matthews from prime scoring positions during that stretch. Colorado controlled the play for much of the afternoon outside of that. He did have to make one sprawling save on a rebound shot from Matias Maccelli with just more than seven minutes left in the third.

Max Domi broke up Blackwood’s shutout bid with 1:02 remaining on a power-play goal. After the loss to Philadelphia, Bednar said Blackwood needs to “get in the groove” and play more consistently after his second absence of the season because of injuries.

“It’s hard to go and miss two weeks here and there,” Blackwood said. “I don’t think it’s good for anybody, especially a goalie. The whole game depends on reads and patience and watching the play. The only way to feel confident doing that is to do it.”

FOOTNOTES: The Avs remained without captain Gabe Landeskog (upper body), Devon Toews (upper body) and Ross Colton (lower body). Toews and Colton are with the team on this road trip. Bednar said after the game the goal is still for Landeskog to play for Sweden at the 2026 Olympics in Milan … Isak Posch backed up Blackwood because Scott Wedgewood is back in Denver with his wife and newborn daughter. Wedgewood is expected to join the club later during the trip.

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