Avalanche goal barrage buries Canadiens

A failing six-game road trip would’ve stimulated major changes for their team.

“Three straight for us is huge”, MacKinnon said.

Sorry, this video is not available in your country/region. Mike Condon stopped only 7 of 11 shots for the Canadiens (13-3-2) in two periods of work in suffering his first regulation loss of the season.

Let’s dig deeper on how that happened.

He scored the game-winner 18:25 into the first period and then added the insurance marker 13 seconds later.

“He’s a great player”, said Canadiens defenceman P.K. Subban.

Playing just their third game in nine days, the Montreal Canadiens would have had a good excuse for a flat start versus the Colorado Avalanche; a team that had been playing well in a bid to get back into the playoff race in the tightly contested Central Division. Comeau took a low-risk shot that should have been an easy save, but instead it beat Condon to put the Habs back down by three.

However, a miscommunication between Montreal’s defensemen resulted in a Jack Skille breakaway, and the ensuing offensive zone faceoff brought about Nathan MacKinnon’s first goal of the night. The momentum shifted quickly to the Canadiens favour less than three minutes later when Matt Duchene took a high-sticking penalty 200 feet from his own net. I mean, c’mon guys – I know it’s the weekend, but can we sober up just a little bit before doing our jobs? So I gotta take ownership for that. “I’ve got to make that save”. It was the first time he’d been pulled from a game in over a year, as he hadn’t been pulled once in the AHL with the Hamilton Bulldogs last season.

Grigorenko opened the scoring at 3:26 of the first period. They were 59-21 after two. Montreal, Condon 6-1-2 (11-7), Tokarski (0:00 third, 13-11).

“We’re not going to start blaming anyone”, said Montreal coach Michel Therrien. After two periods, we were outshooting them 32-11 and they were leading 4-1. We had 33 against 11 and we were down 4-1. “It was one of those nights”.

MacKinnon now leads Colorado in goals with eight.

The Avs jumped on the first shaky start for rookie goaltender Mike Condon to make it three wins in a row to begin a six-game road trip, which next takes them to Toronto on Tuesday night. 3, Colorado, MacKinnon 8 (Grigorenko, Duchene), 18:38. Combining with the newly paired duo of Jeff Petry and Nathan Beaulieu, the five skaters strung together several passes and peppered Reto Berra with shots, the last of which was a slight misfire by Pacioretty on a one-timer that hit the Avalanche goalie in the pads and was corraled to end the barrage.