Canucks 3, Avalanche 0
Alex Burrows registered his first goal in five games and Cory Schneider made 24 saves for his second career shutout as the Vancouver Canucks defeated the Colorado Avalanche 3-0 on Wednesday to give coach Alain Vigneault his franchise-record 247th victory.
Ryan Kesler scored an empty-netter in his 500th career game and Manny Malhotra notched his first goal of the season as the Canucks improved to 10-0-2 in their last 12 games against Colorado.
Vigneault, who took Vancouver to Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Finals last season, is 247-142-42 with the Canucks. Marc Crawford was 246-189-59.
Semyon Varlamov made 26 saves en route to his sixth straight loss as the Avalanche fell to an NHL-worst 3-8-0 at home. They have lost 11 of their last 14 games overall and are 4-11-1 since starting the season 5-1-0.
Schneider improved to 2-1-0 in his third straight start in place of Roberto Luongo. His best stop came midway through the third period, when he robbed Ryan O’Reilly from close range with his stick hand.
Malhotra gave the Canucks a 1-0 lead in the first period when he took a feed from Cody Hodgson in the slot and snapped one between Varlamov’s pads.
Burrows held the puck and waited for Varlamov to commit before going upstairs for his sixth goal of the season in the second period.
The NHL’s top two power plays combined to go 0 for 7.