Alexander Georgiev Leads Avalanche to 2-1 Win Over Capitals – Hockey Writers – Colorado Avalanche

The Colorado Avalanche and the Washington Capitals faced off twice in less than a week. The last time these two teams met, on November 15, the Capitals blew out the Avalanche in a 5-2 victory in Denver. This time, they are in Washington. The biggest difference this time was that they were without Alexander Ovechkin, who broke his fibula. The Avalanche were looking for revenge in the last game and capitalized on being without their Hall-of-Fame player, resulting in a 2-1 victory for Colorado.

The game Recap

Both teams looked to create chances early on and looked good. The Avalanche started to play strong to open the scoring, but were well defended, as they only got two shots on net. The Capitals are all over Nathan MacKinnon any chance they get when he gets into this position. They would get a chance on the power play when Logan O’Conner was called for a walk, but the Avalanche would defend it well. Despite losing Ovechkin, the power play still looks strong; Dylan Strome moved the puck well and created many opportunities in front of the net.

Pierre Luc Dubois opened the scoring off a nice pass from Tom Wilson, which caused Jonathan Drouin and Josh Manson to lose their defenders when Wilson crossed the crease and passed again. The Capitals kept up the pressure and almost doubled their lead as Aliaksei Protas was left open above the crease, but Alexander Georgiev stopped his close-range shot. The first period ended as the Capitals came out stronger than the Avalanche and capitalized on it with the help of a key save from Logan Thompson.

The Avalanche coming out of halftime to start the second, looked more like themselves and could quickly generate more chances, especially with a sweet sauce pass from MacKinnon to Artturi Lehkonen. Still, Thompson came up big with saves. The Avalanche continued to press, but a pass down the ice broke and ended up on Dubois’ stick for a breakaway but it survived. The Capitals looked to create some offense by coming out of their attacking zone with Mangiapane, but it was offside.

That’s when the Capitals turned it around midway through the second and started getting chances. Brandon Duhaime had his shot taken from the hash marks, and McMichael was denied two breakaways: one by trying to wait for Georgiev to come out but he just put the gun too far behind him, and the other was checked. After a long break to fix the boards, the Avalanche got a power play from McMichael hooking Lehkonen, and they capitalized. A pass from Rantanen crossed the crease and bounced off Roy’s skate and into Thompson’s five-hole to tie the game. The rest of the time showed how important both goalkeepers were in this game as they both had to make a number of saves before the end of time.

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The third period started much like the second, with the Avalanche starting the period at their own pace. Many chances were created, but Thompson continued to stand tall until Miles Wood headed home Cale Makar’s shot in front of the net to give them the lead. They almost doubled it up as Makar’s shot nearly hit Thompson in the five hole, but he lay on it to blow the game away.

Both teams had chances to play with power, but neither could convert as both goalkeepers continued to show their worth tonight. As the clock ticked down, the Capitals showed their eagerness to switch from defense to offense in an instant, trying to get out of the zone quickly and create offense. Thompson was pulled with 2:27 to go, but the Capitals couldn’t do anything with the man advantage. Many point blank shots were attempted, and none would go in, but the Avalanche held strong and secured a 2-1 victory.

Both teams returned to the ice on Saturday, Nov. 23, as the Avalanche face the Florida Panthers and the Capitals face the New Jersey Devils.