Hurricanes at Avalanche
A pair of teams fighting for a shot at the postseason look to build off strong rebound performances when the Colorado Avalanche host the Carolina Hurricanes on Monday night. Carolina won at Nashville 5-3 on Saturday after suffering an embarrassing 8-1 setback just 24 hours earlier while the Avalanche recovered from a shutout loss to Dallas by blanking Buffalo 3-0 on Saturday.
Colorado is two points behind Minnesota for the second wild-card spot in the Western Conference after winning the first game since captain Gabriel Landeskog (33 goals) went down with an upper-body injury that will keep him out 4-to-6 weeks. “Start to finish, that might have been our best game all year,” Avalanche defenseman Erik Johnson told reporters Saturday. “. … This homestand is big for us. We know the importance of it and we can’t worry about scoreboard watching or anything like that; we just have to worry about our games. If we handle that and handle our business at home, hopefully we are where we want to be at the end of the season.” The Hurricanes have a two-point cushion and a game in hand on the ninth-place team in Eastern Conference after getting two first-period goals from Nino Niederreiter at Nashville and holding on to earn at least a point for the sixth straight road game (5-0-1). “We knew what kind of stage we’re (on) right now,” Niederreiter told reporters. “We’re all fighting for a (playoff) spot, and I think we’re in a good position. … We had to make sure we bounced back, and that’s what we did.”
TV: 9 p.m. ET, FS Carolinas, Altitude (Colorado)
ABOUT THE HURRICANES (37-24-7): Sebastian Aho has scored six times and set up four others in the last eight games to push his team-leading total to 77 points while fellow forward Justin Williams reached 20 goals for the seventh time in his career Saturday. Left wing Teuvo Teravainen (18 goals) notched a pair of assists Saturday and is second on the team with 63 points, pulling within one of his career-high total last season. Petr Mrazek (17-12-3) turned aside 31 shots to earn the victory Saturday and has won five straight starts while posting a .935 save percentage during that stretch.
ABOUT THE AVALANCHE (30-27-12): Mikko Rantanen scored his 30th goal Saturday to join Nathan MacKinnon (35) and Landeskog as the first trio of 30-goal scorers for Colorado since 1995-96 - Joe Sakic (51), Claude Lemieux (39), Valeri Kamensky (37) and Peter Forsberg (30). “We’re proud of it. It’s a good accomplishment for us,” MacKinnon told reporters. “We want to be part of the solution, with new guys coming in and all that. We need to continue producing and winning. It’s a new era here.” MacKinnon has five of his team-high 87 points the last three games while Rantanen boasts 10 of his 86 in the past 10 contests.
OVERTIME
1. Carolina RW Micheal Ferland (upper body) missed Saturday’s game and his status for Monday is uncertain.
2. Colorado is 9-of-34 on the power play over the last 10 games and entered Sunday eighth in the league at 22.7 percent.
3. The Avalanche have won four of the last five meetings, including a 3-1 win at Carolina on Oct. 20.