Colorado Avalanche

Your Colorado Avalanche earned an 8-6 chaotic victory over the Edmonton Oilers to open the Western Conference Final last night, but Nathan MacKinnon prefers ...

this is weird to say out loud but like... There is one spicy take at the very beginning.[The Athletic] Nathan MacKinnon: "We would prefer to not have an 8-6 game.

“To a man, we weren't good enough defensively,” said Oilers head coach Jay Woodcroft. “You score six goals in a game you should win the game. For us, we know we ...

It’s great they were able to get a goal, but they’ve also been scored on six times when on the ice. With Foegele-McLeod-Puljujarvi on the ice at 5×5 when adjusting for score and venue, the Oilers controlled 72.22 percent of the shot attempts, 84.75 percent of the expected goal share and 83.33 percent of the shot attempts. We’re going to be better and that’s on us to be ready for the next game.” They showed it in spurts last night whee they dominated points in the game offensively. “To a man, we weren’t good enough defensively,” said Oilers head coach Jay Woodcroft. “You score six goals in a game you should win the game. McDavid outscored the forwards 2-1 at 5×5, but the defencemen outscored McDavid 1-2. Colorado gave up six goals or more four times in the regular season — one of them to Edmonton. They didn’t win any. “They’re a good team, they’re going to create a lot of offence. Will they be able to do it three times in a row? For the third time in these playoffs, the Oilers came out flat in game one falling to their foe. Far from perfect, but much like in the first two, the Oilers fought like hell to get back into it. They showed, at the very least, they can hang with this Avalanche team.

DENVER – SPORTS – It took the Edmonton Oilers almost two periods for the team to find its jets and get fully into Game One of the Third Round playoff series ...

DENVER (AP) — J.T. Compher scored twice, Cale Makar had a goal and two assists and the Colorado Avalanche held off the Edmonton Oilers 8-6 on Tuesday night ...

Sakic captured two Stanley Cup titles as an Avalanche player and is trying to deliver another calling the shots from the front office. Hall of Fame QB John Elway joined Wayne Gretzky and the crew on TNT’s pregame show. So it was great,” the defenseman said. But by 7:24 left in the third, Edmonton made it 7-6 on Nugent-Hopkins’ power-play goal. At times, this looked more like an All-Star Game — lots of scoring and defense being optional — rather than a conference final. This was a matchup billed as a showdown between stars Nathan MacKinnon and Connor McDavid and they delivered.

Can you imagine if we'd ended up with the stupid Blues in this series? That would have sucked! Instead, Game 1 between the Colorado Avalanche and the ...

All the goals in this contest made it a hell of a fun time to watch and kept anyone from counting out Edmonton even while they languished in the second. Derek Ryan was in the right place at the right time for a goal early in the third. This rodeo of a series might be a once-in-a-lifetime chance for records to fall and for football teams to get insecure about their production. At this point, both backup goalies were in the game—Colorado’s due to an injury to Kuemper and Edmonton’s due to Mike Smith’s failure to contain the onslaught. Instead, Game 1 between the Colorado Avalanche and the Edmonton Oilers in the Western Conference Final proved to be a god-given opportunity for goals, goals, goals. Then the Avs tried to end things with two quick ones from Mikko Rantanen and a Compher deflection, plus another a little later from Andrew Cogliano.

The talk around the Western Conference Final was all about offense. The Colorado Avalanche and Edmonton Oilers didn't disappoint. The teams combined for 14 ...

That tied Rantanen for the team lead in playoff assists with Makar and tied him for third on the team in points with Gabriel Landeskog. He scored two in that series-clinching game against St. Louis and added two more in Tuesday’s Game 1 against the Oilers. Rantanen led the Avalanche in goals (36) and points (92) this season, and they need him to score goals. Before Game 6 of Colorado’s second-round series against the St. Louis Blues, J.T. Compher had just two points in the postseason and was scoreless in the second round. He had five goals in Colorado’s 10 playoff games a year ago, and that’s the production the Avs need to have from him going forward. Ryan McLeod was able to trim the lead to 4-3 a couple of minutes after Kadri’s goal, but Colorado scored the next two in the period to knock out Edmonton goaltender Mike Smith and essentially put the game away. With all of the talk around the offense in this series, the goaltending was under increased scrutiny. It resulted in a goal by Nazem Kadri just 32 seconds into the second, pushing the Avalanche’s lead to 4-2, and they led the rest of the way. The star defenseman finished with a goal and two assists in the victory. It was initially called a good goal on the ice, and the Oilers challenged. Makar scored moments later, giving the Avs a 3-2 lead with just 13 seconds left in the first period. The teams combined for 14 goals and used four goaltenders as the Avs held on for an 8-6 victory in Game 1.