Cale Makar had a goal and two assists, and Nathan MacKinnon and Artturi Lehkonen each had a goal and an assist for the Avalanche, ranked No. 3 from Central. Alexander Georgiev made 16 saves.
“[Georgiev’s game] Maybe it needed to be better, right? Colorado coach Jared Bednar said. “I think we played well, created some chances. He made some good saves, but so did we [going to] You need to make more saves than that probably to win, you know? But it is what it is. We will regroup. We made some mistakes against him that we will have to clean up and try to get the job done. “It's a team game.”
The second game will be in Winnipeg on Tuesday.
Valeri Nikushkin gave the Avalanche a 1-0 lead at 6:10 of the first period, carrying the ball into the offensive zone and beating Hellebuyck with a wrist shot from above the right faceoff point.
“You're not ticking off any of these goals [Hellebuyck]“Some of them had seeing eyes, some of them were jumping all over the place, some of them were just dead giveaways on our part,” said Bowness. You don't attach any of it to him. It could have been worse. “Seriously, we don't do that.” “We don't give up many chances, we don't give up many shots and Connor should have played better and made a lot of big timely saves, which he always does.” Goals on him. .
Morrissey tied it 1-1 at 8:02. The Jets rotated the puck along the blue line before Morrissey fired a wrist shot through traffic that beat Georgiev's glove side.
“This is the playoffs. Both teams had to push each other, both teams pushed to the brink and made teams play different ways,” Makar said. “Unfortunately, all the mistakes we made ended up in the net. That's the way it goes sometimes. There are two things you should clean up and then turn the page.
Vladislav Namestnikov put Winnipeg ahead 2-1 at 11:57. Josh Manson tried to clear the ball along the end boards, but Alex Yafalo turned it over to Namestnikov for a one-timer in front.
“That's why you want to play the game, you want to play against the best and perform at the highest level,” Connor said. “All of us — we have a really deep team — to contribute like this, it's part of the fun.”
The Avalanche then scored two goals within 18 seconds. Miles Wood tied it 2-2 at 14:47 after one pass in the slot before MacKinnon made it 3-2 with a wrist shot from the left circle at 15:05.
“I thought we got off to a great start tonight,” Bednar said. “We haven't played the Jets well this year. We played a good game at the beginning of the season, but this is the first time we've played hard and they've been playing hard and seeing what happens. And it's a seven-game series. I don't think much has changed for us from the beginning.” To the end, I think our guys played as hard as they could and as cleanly as they could.
Chevelle tied it 3-3 after just 48 seconds. Gabriel Vilardi took the puck from behind the net and passed it across the crease for Scheifele to slot the puck into the right post at 15:53.
“There were a lot of emotions,” Georgiev said. “Two great chances for them, two great chances for us. It was a high-octane game. To be tied after the first was a very good situation for us.”
Lowry made it 4-3 at 8:57 of the second period, keeping the puck on a 2-on-1 rush and slotting a shot between Georgiev's pads.
“[Lowry] “He was a great leader for the team on and off the ice,” Bowness said. “He was a great choice for captain. He loves those challenges. He's going up against one of the best players in the world, not necessarily in the league but in the world and that's Nate.” [MacKinnon]. So he loves those challenges and takes his game to another level. The intensity is always there and it certainly was tonight and it's good to see him get rewarded with a brace, because he worked incredibly hard. “When you play against the MacKinnon line, you're going to have to work extremely hard and you're going to have to be very smart, and Adam did those things for us tonight.”
