The Colorado Avalanche needed a reset, and they got one in a big way Thursday night.
After dropping a 3-2 decision to the Winnipeg Jets on Wednesday, Colorado rolled into Calgary and turned a shaky start into a 7-3 win over the Flames. The Avs didn’t look sharp early, but once the offense kicked in, Calgary had no answer. Devon Toews, Cale Makar and Jaden Schwartz all scored twice, Nathan MacKinnon finished with three points, Brett Kulak added two assists, and Scott Wedgewood made 26 saves for the win.
Colorado’s first period was messy. Turnovers in its own zone kept feeding Calgary chances, and Wedgewood had to clean up more than once.
One of his biggest stops came when Joel Farabee got loose for a shorthanded breakaway after Colorado’s power play stumbled out of the gate. Midway through the period, the Flames had the edge in shots, 5-2, and the Avalanche weren’t doing much to settle things down.
Then Cale Makar and Toews changed the tone. With a little more than five minutes left in the period, Makar found Toews in the low slot, and Toews redirected the puck past Devin Cooley for a 1-0 lead.
It was a quick contrast to last season for Toews, who didn’t score his first goal until Colorado’s 25th game. This time, he got there in Game 4.
Calgary answered before the intermission. Adam Klapka worked around Josh Manson and snapped a wrist shot off the post and in to tie it 1-1. Toews also took a penalty late in the period, leaving Colorado to sort out the kill and the details heading into the second.
The Avalanche looked far more settled after the break. Once they killed off the carryover penalty, Toews struck again, firing from just inside the blue line and sending the puck through traffic to put Colorado back in front.
Makar followed by using his speed to blow past the Calgary defense after a feed from MacKinnon and beat Cooley to make it 3-1. Not long after that, MacKinnon finished a pass from Zachary L’Heureux to push the lead to three.
L’Heureux brought some edge, too, dropping the gloves with Matt Coronato late in the period. He was playing in just his second straight game after missing Colorado’s first two contests with a lower-body injury. By the time the second period ended, the Avs had turned a close game into a 4-1 lead.
The third period started the same way the second ended: with Colorado pressing and Calgary scrambling. Makar scored again early after a pass from Nazem Kadri deflected off MacKinnon and landed in his path.
He buried it for a 5-1 cushion. Less than a minute later, Schwartz jumped on a loose puck in the slot and made it 6-1.
Calgary briefly made things interesting with goals from Mikael Backlund and Kevin Bahl, trimming the gap to 6-3. But Schwartz answered quickly, taking a backhand feed from Fedor Svechkov and beating Cooley from a sharp angle for his second of the night. It was Schwartz’s third goal in about 24 hours after he also scored in Wednesday’s loss to Winnipeg.
From there, Colorado closed it out. The Avs scored six times over the final 40 minutes and left Calgary with a convincing road win after a rough opening stretch.
The result gave Colorado the kind of offensive response it wanted after letting Wednesday’s game slip away. Toews and Makar each posted two-goal nights, MacKinnon kept producing, and Schwartz gave the lineup an immediate lift with another pair.
The defensive issues are still there, though. The turnovers and the three goals against are reminders that Colorado can’t afford many more loose stretches.
Still, seven goals on the road is a pretty loud answer.
The Avalanche return home to face Gavin McKenna and the Toronto Maple Leafs at Ball Arena on Saturday, October 10. Puck drop is set for 5 p.m. local time.
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