Colorado outshot San Jose by 22 but kept at it to get two past the Sharks goaltender.

The Colorado Avalanche stayed focused on the prize and persevered for a 3-1 win over the San Jose Sharks on New Year's Eve. 

Alexandar Georgiev was not challenged much as the Sharks only managed 11 shots on goal, as opposed to the 33 from the Avalanche. But despite the excessive number of shots for the Avs, only two got past Sharks goalie Kappo Kahkonen. 

"Just keep going, trying to stay positive. It's better that way than defending all the time. At least you're feeling good, you have the puck in your hands all the time, just got to stick with it," Mikko Rantanen said after the win. "We had a similar game against them — second game of the year this year and their goalies find a way to play well against us."

The key for the team was to stay even-keeled and keep at it even though the excessive offense was not being rewarded. 

"It can get frustrating — we're not producing many goals right now, we're not producing a ton," MacKinnon said. "So we need good D and I thought we played great, as good as we could've tonight, maybe a little more traffic on their goalie but he had a great night." 

The Avs played a fluid game rather than consistent broken plays as they have in previous games. 

"For us, it's just stressing the discipline of our details and making sure nobody can get away with those on a nightly basis," Cale Makar said. "Those are things that we lacked a little bit in the beginning of the year but I think guys are starting to pick that up now. It's kind of exciting to see guys starting to mold into their roles on this team." 

While it is difficult to remain level-headed when the puck doesn't find the back of the net shot after shot, the team kept driving and eventually got goals from Rantanen, Valeri Nichushkin and an empty-netter from Josh Manson. 

"They feel it, that's the one thing that can get you is the frustration and then fragmenting — going off on your own page, but I heard our guys on the bench the whole night just stay with it.

"You have no choice, if you want to win, you have to stick with it. They all know that. We give them some reminders and try to give them some tactical and some clarity on some things that we can do in order to help produce, but you have no choice but to stick with it," head coach Jared Bednar said. 

The Avalanche will hopefully maintain that mentality and energy into the new year. They face off against the New York Islanders at Ball Arena on Tuesday for their first game in 2024. 

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