The Avalanche discovered an effective formula earlier this season, and sometimes it’s still comforting to return to it, even during a winning streak: When nothing works, just ask Mikko Rantanen for help.
In a tight defensive showdown between two of the Western Conference’s best, Rantanen provided the breakthroughs in a 3-0 win Monday night over the Golden Knights, the sixth in a row for Colorado.
He scored his 39th and 40th goals to supply a 2-0 lead at second intermission, becoming the franchise’s second 40-goal scorer in the last 19 seasons. Nathan MacKinnon finished with 41 in 2018-19, playing all 82 games. Rantanen has reached the milestone in 58 games.
“Puck luck and good linemates,” he said. “That’s what it is.”
He capitalized on a rare Vegas blunder to score Colorado’s fastest goal of the season and his personal easiest. Golden Knights goalie Adin Hill made a sloppy attempt to clear the puck from behind his own net. Instead, it fell at Rantanen’s feet for an empty netter 14 seconds into the game.
This is the third time in franchise history that the Avs have scored on their first shot on goal in three consecutive games. In January 2000, the trio was Dave Reid, Peter Forsberg and Joe Sakic. In November 2005, it was Milan Hejduk, Ian Laperriere and Sakic. This time, it was MacKinnon, MacKinnon, Rantanen. (Interestingly, the Lightning and Capitals both pulled off the feat during the same week in November 2021.)
Bednar joked that now there’s “absolutely” more pressure for Colorado to keep the streak alive Wednesday vs. New Jersey.
This was a game in which it felt like one error could be the difference and missed opportunities would haunt the losing team — especially as the Avalanche (34-19-5) struggled to stretch the lead in the second period. Evan Rodrigues had a clean scoring chance, but Hill astonishingly slid across the crease to stop it. Then during a 4-on-3 power play, Colorado maintained offensive zone time, but Devon Toews was robbed by the pipe.
Then Rantanen arrived. With 3:40 left before the break, J.T. Compher threaded a perfect pass across the slot to the Finnish wing, who was unmarked at the backdoor. For him, that’s an easy finish, too.
“To do it at the clip he’s done it,” Bednar marveled of Rantanen’s scoring. “If I saw it correctly, I just caught a glimpse of a monitor, but it said he was the fastest Av to do it. Just edging out Joe (Sakic). So that’s pretty good company to be keeping.”
Bednar saw the monitor correctly. In fact, Rantanen’s 56.6-goal pace puts on him on track to possibly catch the single-season franchise record (Michel Goulet’s 57 in 1982-83).
Rantanen leads the league with 32 even-strength goals and has a shooting percentage that eclipses 17%. He has also responded to his longest scoring drought of the season (a ghastly six games) with a five-game goal streak, the longest for any Avalanche player this season.
“You obviously know (while you’re on a drought),” Rantanen said. “But we were still winning games, and I had a lot of chances too. If you don’t get chances, then you kind of have to look in the mirror a little bit.”
Alexandar Georgiev continued his solid stretch in the Avalanche net, saving 31 shots in his 11th NHL shutout.
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