As the season wrapped up, the Colorado Avalanche battled one last time against the Seattle Kraken. Colorado had no worries with the game, and Seattle’s season was already over. All the Avs had to do was scoreboard watch, waiting to see who they would play on Sunday afternoon. With the 2–0 win, the Avalanche set a new franchise record, posting 121 points to end the season.

View from the Mountaintop

Avalanche’s primary aim against the Kraken: remain uninjured. The Avs did that by sitting most of their star players. Nathan MacKinnon, Gabriel Landeskog, Martin Necas, Nazem Kadri and Josh Manson all got the night off. Keeping Kadri (finger) and Manson (upper-body) only gave them both more time to rest and recover. Team members sought rest, prepping for Sunday’s Game One.

Nick Blankenburg lit up the rink once again on Thursday night. Playing for Manson in the lineup, he was just there to eat up minutes. He did that and added a little extra spice on top of it. In the first period, Blankenburg threw a shot through traffic to hit the net. Unfortunately, the play was offside. Blankenburg made up for it later in the second period as he pinched down in the zone and hit an impossible shot.

Even though MacKinnon sat out the game, he officially secured the Maurice “Rocket” Richard Trophy. The award is given to the leading goal scorer in the NHL every season. MacKinnon, with his 53 goals, won it by two goals over Montreal’s Cole Caufield. This is the second time in franchise history that someone has won the award. The first was by Milan Hejduk in 2002–03 with 50 goals.

The offensive game may not have shown up very much for the Avalanche, but the defensive game was there. We already mentioned Blankenburg, but the other five played a solid game. Sam Malinski was moved down to the second pairing, but that did not change his game at all. Malinski continued to play his stellar defense and show how much he has grown this season.

Up next

The Avalanche begin Round One of the Stanley Cup Playoffs against the Los Angeles Kings on Sunday at 1 p.m. MT. Altitude Sports will broadcast the game.