The Colorado Avalanche overcame the absence of injured stars Nathan MacKinnon and Cale Makar and halted the Montreal Canadiens’ 12-game point streak with a 4-1 road victory on Saturday.
Artturi Lehkonen scored his team-leading 15th goal and picked up an assist in the victory. Brock Nelson, Fedor Svechkov and Nicolas Roy also tallied for the Avalanche, while Mackenzie Blackwood finished with 25 saves.
Nick Suzuki scored a beautiful spin-o-rama goal and Jakub Dobes made 23 saves between the pipes for Montreal.
Svechkov cut in toward the crease on a 2-on-1 and his attempted pass bounced off the skate of Adam Engstrom and past Dobes with 3:57 gone in the first period to give the Avalanche the early lead.
With a delayed penalty coming, Lehkonen sent a pass to Nelson in the slot and he wired his one-timed shot into the back of the net with 4:05 remaining in the opening period, tallying his ninth goal in his last 10 games against the Canadiens.
The second period started with a slew of penalties, but the Canadiens were unable to score on a pair of power-play opportunities and they held the Avalanche scoreless on their chance at the man advantage.
Colorado’s Juraj Slafkovsky was unable to take advantage of a couple of scoring chances and Blackwood denied a one-timer from Cole Caufield during the barrage of power plays.
Suzuki sent the home fans into a frenzy with a highlight-reel goal with 9:35 left in the second period. The Canadiens captain finished off his slick maneuver by sending his backhand shot off the crossbar and into the back of the net to make it a one-goal game.
After Dobes made a pair of impressive saves, Lehkonen found the lucky charm on their third try, scoring on the power play to make it 3-1 for the visiting side 4:14 into the third period.
Montreal’s Alex Newhook reached up and deflected teammate Kirby Dach’s long shot past Blackwood, but video review concluded that it was touched with a high-stick with 9:05 left in the third.
Nicolas Roy capped off the night with an empty-net tally in the closing seconds.
