The Avalanche will try to complete a sweep of their two-game set with the Los Angeles Kings on Sunday at Ball Arena following their 2-0 win Friday.
Sunday's game was moved from 5 p.m. MT to 3:30 p.m. because of predictions of a huge snowstorm, but it didn’t look so huge as of Saturday afternoon. It's being aired on NBC Sports Network.
Philipp Grubauer chalked up his fourth shutout of the season Friday and the 15th of his NHL career as the Avalanche outshot the Kings 46-18.
They’ve outshot opponents a combined 127-46 in the past three games and broke the franchise record they shared with the 2001 Stanley Cup championship team by limiting a team to fewer than 30 shots on goal for the 15th game in a row.
Here’s my NHL.com RECAP of Friday’s win.
“It takes everybody, not just our defense,… Grubauer said after the game. “It takes all the forwards, too, to work back and do the right thing, tracking back. It starts in the offensive zone. We don’t want to give up too many odd-man rushes, so everybody’s got to be aware of who’s on the ice and don’t get beat towards our net. Everybody’s on track and dialed in and that’s why we’re winning."
As for not having faced many shots in recent games, Grubauer said:
“You always got to be alert. Just because they don’t get a shot for five or six minutes doesn’t mean I can just hook up my umbrella, hang back in the crease and enjoy the view. I had a couple breakaways and in the end a couple shots in the slot.…
Mikko Rantanen scored in the second period and gave up the chance to score into an empty net by feeding Nathan MacKinnon for the easy goal.
The Avalanche didn’t practice Saturday and neither did the Kings, who cancelled because a number of players woke up not feeling well, coach Todd McLellan said.
They already were without forward Alex Iafallo (ill) and defenseman Olli Maatta (COVID protocol).
“The storm didn’t play into it at all,… McLellan said. “Our team right now is going through an illness going through the team. We don’t believe it’s COVID related, it’s just winter related. Obviously those two players didn’t play yesterday Olli and Alex. Alex seems to be a little better, Olli not.
“There’s a group of other players that have woke up not feeling real good, so out of precautions -- again, we don’t believe it’s COVID related -- but just flu and all the other stuff we never talk about anymore. We didn’t practice (Saturday), we kept everyone away from each other and we’ll play (Sunday) without a pregame skate, but that’s all we can do. We’re dealing with different circumstances.…
The Avalanche lineup:
FORWARDS Gabriel Landeskog -- Nathan MacKinnon -- Mikko Rantanen Brandon Saad -- Nazem Kadri -- Andre Burakovsky Valeri Nichushkin -- Tyson Jost -- Joonas Donskoi Matt Calvert -- Pierre-Edouard Bellemare -- Logan O’Connor
DEFENSE Ryan Graves -- Devon Toews Jacob MacDonald -- Samuel Girard Dan Renouf -- Greg Pateryn
GOALIES Philipp Grubauer Hunter Miska