Avs Erase Late Deficit, Beat Hawks in Shootout

Makar powers Avs to comeback win

Let’s be honest… that was brutal.

If you managed to endure the 50-minute slog that was last night’s so-called Avalanche-Blackhawks game — a contest that more closely resembled an over-40 beer league tilt — at the United Center, then you deserve every good thing life has to offer.

Chicago is bad. The league standings prove it. Colorado is good. The league standings prove that, too. But when Colorado plays in Chicago? The Avalanche inexplicably become a bad team. Why? NO ONE KNOWS!

Wednesday night’s 3-2 shootout win for the Avs was yet another chapter in this ongoing saga of suck against one of the league’s bottom-feeders. It took the NHL’s fifth-best team a staggering 49 minutes and 17 seconds to score a (legal) goal against the second-worst team in the league. But once they finally found the net and cut the deficit in half, they looked like, well, themselves again, culminating in Artturi Lehkonen’s shootout winner following Martin Necas’ dramatic, last-second equalizer to salvage at least one point.

As usual, it was Cale Makar who carried the Avs when they needed it most. His 29th goal of the season was the long-overdue breakthrough, a rocket from the slot off a slick centering feed from Nathan MacKinnon. And when the Avs desperately needed a hero in the dying moments, Chris MacFarland’s mid-season moves bore fruit. Sure, the scoresheet credits Necas with tipping Makar’s point shot and Valeri Nichushkin with the secondary assist. But the real architect? Brock Nelson, whose crucial faceoff win in the offensive zone set the entire play in motion. Just weeks ago, faceoffs were a glaring weakness for this team. Now? They’re game-changers.