With the St. Louis Blues still working to earn a wild card position in this year\u2019s playoffs, and the Avalanche on the cusp of a Central Division title, there was plenty to play for, and Ball Arena was the scene on Easter Sunday evening.<\/p>\n
Colorado comes in on the second of a back-to-back, having beaten the Dallas Stars 2-0 in regulation yesterday, and the Blues just secured two points over the Anaheim Ducks and are 6-2-2 in their last 10 games.<\/p>\n
Valeri Nichushkin was listed as OUT with an upper-body injury ahead of puck drop, so the Avs would go without their best d-man and a very valuable forward.<\/p>\n
This game started strong with both clubs making their intentions clear with a focused defensive effort. It appeared the Avalanche would take the 1-0 lead if not for a coach\u2019s challenge that deemed the play offside.<\/p>\n
Shortly after Colorado\u2019s goal was called back, the top line was unable to retrieve and break out of their own, resulting in a net front scramble that eventually ended with Robert Thomas\u2019 one-timer over the shoulder of MacKenzie Blackwood.<\/p>\n
The Blue note would establish an early 1-0 lead.<\/p>\n
The team in dark blue and burgundy wouldn\u2019t let the lead last long as Parker Kelly notched his 20th of the season and tied things at 1-1.<\/p>\n
As mentioned in previous recaps featuring a Kelly goal, Guerilla Sports\u2019 Meghan Angley vowed to adopt a whale if Parker Kelly scored 20 goals. Well, here we are. I wonder what its name will be!<\/p>\n
Nathan MacKinnon would earn a late power play in the first, but with too little time remaining in the frame to create. Breaking the 1-1 tie would have to wait until period number two.<\/p>\n
The tie breaker wouldn\u2019t come on the opening power play for the Avalanche; in fact, they didn\u2019t have a single shot on net.<\/p>\n
Instead, it was Brent Burns who sent a shot from the blue line toward a screening Landeskog. Hofer couldn\u2019t fight through the Swedish distraction and was beaten on the far side by Burns\u2019 shot from distance.<\/p>\n
Colorado\u2019s newly minted lead would last all of 29 seconds with Robert Thomas scoring his second of the evening on a perfectly executed two-on-one. Things were tied at 2-2.<\/p>\n
Both Hofer and Blackwood would make some timely saves in the middle portion of the second period to keep things tied.<\/p>\n
The same would be true for most of the third until Robert Thomas put away the game-winner and hat-trick clinching goal with 2:30 seconds left.<\/p>\n
The Avalanche would not overcome the deficit, and winning the division will have to wait.<\/p>\n
Parker Kelly scoring 20 goals is an incredible feat, and he should be proud. Kelly is signed through the 2030-31 season, and if he can consistently be a 20-goal scorer, his $1.7M AAV contract will look like money in the bank.<\/p>\n
St. Louis lurking in the wild card conversation is a bit of a suprise but they have been one of the hottest hockey teams in the league since the Olympic break.<\/p>\n
I\u2019d presume most Avalanche fans would be okay with Jordan Binnington on St. Louis not making a playoff appearance in 2025-26.<\/p>\n
We saw a classy and special honoring of Brent Burns\u2019 1,000 consecutive games played, and Colorado\u2019s iron man was clearly appreciative but appeared a bit shy in the moment. He\u2019s never come across as a \u2018me\u2019 guy, so that makes sense.<\/p>\n
A home-and-home will travel to St. Louis for a Tuesday night game between these two clubs yet again.<\/p>\n
Let us know what you thought of this contest in the comments!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"With the St. Louis Blues still working to earn a wild card position in this year\u2019s playoffs, and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":543444,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[377],"tags":[29254,15573,5],"class_list":{"0":"post-543443","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-hockey","8":"tag-colorado-avalanche-game-coverage","9":"tag-colorado-avalanche-recaps","10":"tag-hockey"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116356586340785825","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/543443","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=543443"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/543443\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/543444"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=543443"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=543443"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=543443"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}