Ryan Johansen scored two goals, Cale Makar had a goal and an assist and the Colorado Avalanche beat the Tampa Bay Lightning 4-1 in Denver on Monday night.
Valeri Nichushkin also scored for the Avalanche, Alexandar Georgiev turned away 40 shots and Nathan MacKinnon had two assists to extend his home point streak to 10 games. Colorado has won four consecutive games and seven of its past eight.
Anthony Cirelli scored and Andrei Vasilevskiy had 20 saves in his second game of the season for Tampa Bay.
The Avalanche struck first early in the game.
Tomas Tatar poked the puck out of Colorado’s zone, Johansen picked it up in the neutral zone and started a two-on-one with Jonathan Drouin. Tampa Bay defenseman Nick Perbix took away the pass, so Johansen beat Vasilevskiy to the far side at 7:12 of the first period.
Johansen scored again at 1:48 of the second period. Makar carried the puck into the Lightning zone and fed Tatar for a shot that Vasilevskiy saved. The rebound came out to Johansen in the slot, and he buried it into the open net.
It was his ninth goal of the season.
The Avalanche made it 3-0 on a power play less than two minutes later when Makar’s shot from the point deflected off the glove of Tampa Bay’s Luke Glendening and by Vasilevskiy at 3:35. It was Makar’s sixth marker of the season.
Tampa Bay appeared to get on the board near the midpoint of the second when Michael Eyssimont scored, but Colorado successfully challenged for offside.
However, the Lightning did end up scoring before the second intermission after Victor Hedman fed Cirelli with a stretch pass. Cirelli went in alone on Georgiev and beat him with a wrister at 19:29 for his third goal of the campaign.
Tampa Bay pressed for another goal and pulled Vasilevskiy for an extra attacker late in the third. Nichushkin then sealed the victory when he scored into the empty net at 16:46, his 10th.
–Field Level Media
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