They simply don’t get any bigger than this, as the Colorado Avalanche took a ginormous win over the Ottawa Senators in an 8–2 final. It was simply unbelievable for Colorado, which looked under pressure before running away in the end.

A couple of ginormous performances helped in the end for the Avs; more on them later. Once again, Colorado was on another level, as they have been for many other games this season.

View From the Mountaintop

Ottawa came in on the second leg of a back-to-back after losing last night to the Utah Mammoth. It showed, especially in the second period. It could’ve been very different, as they were within one at 3–2 with the Avs seemingly on the back foot. But Colorado challenged for offside, and it was quickly called back. After that moment, the Avalanche scored five more goals in the middle frame to put this one out of reach. It was simply unstoppable afterwards.

After losing two straight games on the road to end the road trip against the Florida Panthers and Tampa Bay Lightning, Colorado was angry. They came out for vengeance. Josh Manson set the tone with an early fight with Tyler Kleven after he threw a hard hit on Ivan Ivan. He took him down and followed suit with a goal out of the box. During the second period, he did something special again by getting an assist on Cale Makar’s goal, completing his Gordie Howe hat trick. Manson added another goal and assist and was only one fight away from another Gordie Howe hatty. He was one goal away from an actual hat trick, too. Brock Nelson was in a similar position. Everybody was rolling, and all but seven players had a point. Nathan MacKinnon also finished with a four-point night alongside Manson.

The absence of Mackenzie Blackwood, Devon Toews, Logan O’Connor, Joel Kiviranta, and Gabriel Landeskog had already shaken up the lineup before this game. But it didn’t make a difference. If anything, it allowed some folks to get fresh looks on different lines. One interesting defensive pair was seeing Sam Malinski alongside Makar on the top pairing. He stuck with it and was solid with the big guns.

These two teams have had some wild moments against each other in their last nine matchups. They’ve scored 85 goals combined in that span. They can’t play normal games with each other. A solid power play for the Avalanche against the worst PK unit on the road in the league helped their case, as they went 2-for-6. The dominant play at 5-on-5 was also optimal and simply relentless. It’s a perfect and ginormous way to open the season-long seven-game home stand.

Up Next

The homestand continues on Saturday afternoon against the Columbus Blue Jackets. Puck drop is at 2:00 p.m. MT. Altitude Sports will broadcast the game.