I've been recovering from a wicked case of flu this week, so excuse the short recap.
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The Avalanche and John Mitchell ended a couple of significant and embarrassing streaks Thursday in Boston.
Colorado snapped its six-game losing streak (0-5-1) with a 4-2 win against the Bruins and Mitchell finally collected his first point of the season with a second-period goal.
Mitchell gave the Avalanche a 3-0 lead at 4:09 of the period when he skated down left wing and beat goalie Anton Khudobin. It turned out to be the winning goal when the Bruins closed within 3-2 on two David Pastrnak goals 1:20 apart.
Soderberg stemmed the Boston momentum at 17:05 when he converted a pass from Mikhail Grigorenko.
“Weight off the shoulders,… Mitchell told the Denver Post. “I wish we could have won 3-0 or 4-0, but it was good. Just nice to get that goal and to get a point.…
The Avalanche (10-14-1) also got goals from Matt Duchene, Nathan MacKinnon and Carl Soderberg. They've gone 10-0-1 in Boston since a 4-1 loss on March 30, 1998.
Goalie Calvin Pickard, who is expected to start Saturday in Montreal, had 29 saves and improved to 5-2-1 for the season. He has a 2.39 goals-against average and .922 save percentage.
Duchene opened the scoring in a 4-on-4 situation at 5:30 of the first period with his 10th goal, all of which have been scored on the road. MacKinnon followed with a shorthanded breakaway at 12:57.
Duchene's 10 road goals are one fewer than have been scored by Sidney Crosby, who leads the NHL in that department. The goal was the 166th of his career, tying him with Valeri Kamensky for eighth place in Quebec/Colorado franchise history.
"I can't score at home, and we're on the road," Duchene told reporters. "It feels good. We haven't scored the first goal many times this year, and the nights that we have we've usually won. So it felt good to get on the board early."
The Avalanche have scored first seven times and are 5-2-0 when they do.