Colorado's depth prevailed with five different goal scorers in an impactful 5-1 win over Seattle.
Jonathan Drouin scored his first goal in burgundy and blue and the Colorado Avalanche showcased its depth in the 5-1 win over the Seattle Kraken Monday night at Climate Pledge Arena.
Colorado started off slow and the Kraken capitalized with a goal from Brandon Tanev at 6:13 in the first period.
The second period was a momentum shifter for the Avs with Mikko Rantanen netting one off a rebound grab from Nathan MacKinnon. Two minutes later, Ross Colton grabbed a rebound off a Devon Toews shot to wrist it past Kraken goaltender Joey Daccord for his first power play goal of the season.
Head coach Jared Bednar was relieved that his team produced two goals on the power play as it had been struggling the past few games. Valeri Nichushkin got the other man-advantage goal and fifth of the game in the third period.
"All around team effort. Pretty good job," Bednar said after the game.
Drouin netted his first of the season off a tape to tape pass from MacKinnon to beat Daccord glove-side. It was a weight off the Quebec native's shoulders as he's had some good looks in previous games but hasn't been able to get one in the net.
"Obviously it was a while coming but to get a goal like that in the third period — it was a great pass by Nate (MacKinnon) and just bury one now," Drouin said. "Got that away from me and we got a win out of it."
Bednar and Drouin's teammates have been rooting for him to break that ice as he's had several chances and played hard in past games so it wasn't for lack of effort.
"As a coach, you want them all to get rewarded for their hard work and one way to get rewarded is me giving them more ice time," Bednar said. "But the production is what they're looking for and what you need in order to win hockey games. So guys are feeling good about themselves and it can carry over and carry over and give your team a little bit of confidence that you can get the job done under difficult circumstances."
The win was much needed as the Avalanche suffered an 8-2 loss to the St. Louis Blues just two nights before. The team was struggling with a disconnect and needing to fix mistakes it was making that allowed opponents to capitalize on its downfall.
"Just telling our guys no baggage coming into this," Bednar said. "We talked about it this morning and it was like live in the moment, do what we got to do, and focus on what we need to focus on to have success."
The victory is exactly what the Avalanche needed to regain that memory of what it takes to win games at this level. Players said they needed to "wake up" and have a "reality check" after other losses, and that's how they responded.
Cale Makar, Mikko Rantanen, Tomas Tatar and Toews had two-point games while MacKinnon had three for the night. Caleb Jones notched a point in his first game with the Avalanche.
Bednar said he was impressed with both Jones and Sam Malinski who made his NHL debut at Climate Pledge Arena.
Colorado faces off against the Anaheim Ducks back home at Ball Arena on Wednesday night.