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Another late goal, 2-0 series lead

August 14, 2020, 8:45 PM ET [3 Comments]
Rick Sadowski
Colorado Avalanche Blogger •Avalanche Insider • RSSArchiveCONTACT
Another game, another late third-period goal.

After scoring three third-period goals in Game 1 of the Avalanche’s 3-0 win against Arizona, Andre Burakovsky had the honors in Game 2 on Friday.

Burakovsky scored with 2:53 remaining to lift the Avalanche to a 3-2 win for a 2-0 lead in the opening round of the best-of-7 Stanley Cup playoffs at Rogers Place in Edmonton.

Nazem Kadri took a shot from the left side that hit a Coyotes skate and ricocheted to Burakovsky in the right slot. He had an open net to shoot at and put it in off the far post.

“It's important to get pucks to the net,” he said. “Sometimes they'll bounce down on you, and that's what happened tonight. I wasn't fully prepared on it and got lucky that it went post and in. I think it's really important to get goals like that at the end. I think they were pressuring us a lot and to take advantage of it and kind of kill their buzz a little bit and then got the game."

Nathan MacKinnon and Tyson Jost also scored, and Philipp Grubauer made 30 saves for the second-seeded Avalanche.

The Avalanche have outscored Arizona 4-0 in the third period and have a 7-1 edge in the third in five playoff games.

Game 3 is Saturday at 1 p.m. MT.

The Coyotes were a lot better Friday than they were in Game 1. After getting outshot 40-14 in the opener, they outshot the Avalanche 32-28. They had 16 shots in the second period.

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Here’s the schedule, all times MT

Altitude has waived the blackout for the first round, meaning fans in the Denver Metro area can watch all the games on the national networks.

Western Conference First Round

Game 1, Avalanche 3, Arizona 0
Game 2, Avalanche 3, Arizona 2
Game 3, Saturday, 1 p.m.
Game 4, Monday, 3:30 p.m.
*Game 5, Wednesday, TBD
*Game 6, Friday, Aug. 21, TBD
*Game 7, Sunday, Aug. 23, TBD
* If necessary

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Clayton Keller and Michael Grabner scored for the seventh-seeded Coyotes, and Darcy Kuemper made 25 saves.

Jost, who scored at 3:37 of the second period for a 2-1 lead, was in the lineup because Joonas Donskoi was scratched after taking the warmup. And Vladislav Namestnikov left late in the second period after colliding with MacKinnon.

Jost tipped in Cale Makar’s shot from the right point.

“Cale and I kind of made eye contact there and I was hoping he would shoot,” Jost said. “It was a great play by him, that’s what great defensemen do. I was lucky to get a stick on it and redirect it.”

Coach Jared Bednar said after the game that Donskoi was unfit to play and Namestnikov was “dinged up.” He said they are day-to-day.

Bednar wasn’t about to say whether Grubauer or Pavel Francouz would start the second game of the back-to-back.

Grubauer has stopped 44 of 46 shots in the first two games, and is 3-0-1 in the playoffs. Francouz had 27 saves in a 4-0 round-robin win against the Dallas Stars on Aug. 3.

MacKinnon, who scored at 3:04 of the first period for a 1-0 lead, was asked if he was concerned about fatigue heading into Game 3.

“I feel good,” he said. “It’s why I win fitness testing every year. I like to play a lot, I feel good. I have all afternoon to recover. I’ll be buzzing tomorrow.”

Arizona tied it 2-2 at 5:06 of the second period when Grabner chased down a loose puck, skated from the right corner and shot from the right slot.

“We knew they were going to come really hard,” Bednar said. “You read the comments from their coach and from their players about what they felt like that they did or didn’t do or needed to do coming into this game. They played hard, they played real well.

“We needed to ramp up our competitiveness certainly in our defending. I never really felt like we played as well as we could for any large proportion of the game. We know we have to be better than that if we want to win tomorrow.”



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