{"id":521805,"date":"2026-03-25T09:56:31","date_gmt":"2026-03-25T09:56:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/521805\/"},"modified":"2026-03-25T09:56:31","modified_gmt":"2026-03-25T09:56:31","slug":"recap-martin-necas-scores-twice-in-rout-over-penguins","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/521805\/","title":{"rendered":"Recap: Martin Ne\u010das scores twice in rout over Penguins"},"content":{"rendered":"

As the road trip continues, the Colorado Avalanche made a stop in Pittsburgh to get revenge on the Penguins for the ugly 7-2 loss<\/a> from a week ago. This game was neatly the exact opposite of that game as the Avalanche scored early and often to take a 6-2 win in Pittsburgh.<\/p>\n

Prior to the contest it was a day of roster movement as both Ross Colton and Logan O\u2019Connor entered the lineup in return from injury, with the latter making his 2025-26 season debut. Because the infirmary is always a revolving door, Nicolas Roy was a surprise late scratch with an upper-body injury.<\/p>\n

A fast start is what the Avalanche needed and received as Nathan MacKinnon completely undressed Parker Wortherspoon on the blueline and deposited a breakaway goal over Penguins goaltender Arturs Silovs. That lead didn\u2019t last long, however, as Samuel Girard setup Egor Chinakhov for Pittsburgh on a long shot that Brent Burns tipped snuck by Scott Wedgewood.<\/p>\n

Any thought that this game would be hotly contested soon evaporated as the Avalanche scored three goals in the last five minutes of the first period. First, Sam Malinski broke his 38-game scoreless drought to give Colorado the lead. Then Martin Ne\u010das co to Jed his power play prowess with a one-timer goal from his new spot at the left circle. Finally, with Nazem Kadri centering the third line and in a hard-working shift Parker Kelly scored the fourth and final Avalanche goal of the period 35 second later. A 4-1 lead at the first intermission made quite the statement.<\/p>\n

In the second period it appeared there was a sign of life for Pittsburgh when Justin Brazeau scored but Devon Toews collided with a Penguin right into the crease and disturbed Wedgewood. Jared Bednar challenged for goaltender interference and actually won, taking the goal off the board.<\/p>\n

The second period was actually very low-event with only 11 shots generated between the two teams. One of Colorado\u2019s six shots, though, was Martin Ne\u010das continuing his tear and netting his second goal of the night just before the second intermission to put Colorado up 5-1.<\/p>\n

Someone said the third period still had to be played, which it did. Colorado killed a 5-on-3 for over a minute. Pittsburgh did get their second goal late in the period from Rickard Rakell when the puck took a big bounce behind the net and then Cale Makar helped sent it out to the net front and Rakell pounced on the loose puck. That momentum was short-lived as Ross Colton found the empty net to make it a 6-2 final for Colorado.<\/p>\n

Surprisingly Logan O\u2019Connor didn\u2019t get eased back into action as he played just over 15 minutes in this contest. It was nice having him available for the penalty kill and he picked up an assist on Parker Kelly\u2019s goal but it will be worth monitoring how O\u2019Connor holds up over the next several games.<\/p>\n

One final game on the road, back to visit the Winnipeg Jets on Thursday March 26th at 6 p.m. MT.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As the road trip continues, the Colorado Avalanche made a stop in Pittsburgh to get revenge on the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":521806,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5113],"tags":[29254,15573,5,4,118,1469,100,5216],"class_list":{"0":"post-521805","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-pittsburgh-penguins","8":"tag-colorado-avalanche-game-coverage","9":"tag-colorado-avalanche-recaps","10":"tag-hockey","11":"tag-nhl","12":"tag-penguins","13":"tag-pittsburgh","14":"tag-pittsburgh-penguins","15":"tag-pittsburghpenguins"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116289225706023857","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/521805","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=521805"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/521805\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/521806"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=521805"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=521805"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=521805"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}