Colorado's shootout win over the San Jose Sharks made the books — here's a breakdown by the numbers.
The Colorado Avalanche's 2-1 shootout win over the San Jose Sharks was more than just a win — some records were set by the team as a whole and individual players.
After San Jose's Thomas Bordeleau scored his first NHL goal ever at 8:42 of the first period, it remained 1-0 until the game's last minutes.
Colorado had 49 shots on goal before Cale Makar tied it up with the 50th shot of the game at 1:26 left. The 52 total SOG ranked fourth-most in franchise history. Ironically, the franchise-high SOG (57 on March 3, 1996) was also against the Sharks, and they lost that game 5-3. But they also won the Stanley Cup that year.
"I think we played hard, we were competitive, we did a lot of good things," head coach Jared Bednar said. "But when it came to creating scoring chances or capitalizing on the scoring chance, we just missed the last part of the execution. So, it probably forced some plays for a while but got better as the game went on. Third period was definitely our best."
Mikko Rantanen scored the game-winner in the shootout to give the Avs a 2-0 start to the season, which is the first time since 2019-20. It's been 10 years since the Avs won two in a row on the road to start the season.
Colorado has proven to finish games after scoreless overtimes owning the NHL's best all-time shootout record (84-47).
Georgiev earns 100th career win
It was goaltender Alexandar Georgiev's 100th regular-season career win, and his 42nd with the Avalanche.
"It felt awesome to win," Georgiev said. "It had been a pretty frustrating game for the guys, but we made it happen and got the two points. That’s the most important."
The Bulgaria native said he wasn't changing anything in his game to start the season on the road.
"It's a lot of games, you have to know how to play in any type situation," the 27-year-old netminder told The Hockey News before hitting the road to open up the season. "I don't think it's too much different."
Other notable achievements
Nathan MacKinnon tied his own franchise-high SOG record for a game at 14.
Jack Johnson played his 1,109th career game — passing Hal Gill (1,108) and tying Keith Yandle for 12th place in all-time games played among American-born defensemen.