Gabriel Landeskog scored three goals for his second hat trick of the season and fifth of his career, Nathan MacKinnon had two goals, and the Colorado Avalanche rallied to beat the Winnipeg Jets 6-3 in Denver on Friday night.
Andre Burakovsky had a goal and an assist; Mikko Rantanen had three assists; Devon Toews, Cale Makar, Nazem Kadri and Valeri Nichushkin added two assists each; and Pavel Francouz stopped 25 shots for Colorado.
Kyle Connor, Adam Lowry and Evgeny Svechnikov scored goals, Pierre-Luc Dubois had two assists and Connor Hellebuyck made 36 saves for the Jets.
The Avalanche trailed 3-0, rallied to tie it and then went ahead in the first minute of the third period when Burakovsky beat Hellebuyck with a wrister from the left circle at 56 seconds, his 15th goal of the season.
MacKinnon’s deflection at 12:13, his 14th goal, made it 5-3, and Landeskog completed his hat trick with his 28th goal at 13:11.
Both of Landeskog’s hat tricks this season have come against Winnipeg.
The Jets built their lead in the first period. Connor beat Francouz at 2:13 of the first period, his 30th goal of the season, and Svechnikov tipped in Josh Morrissey’s slapshot from the point at 7:48. It was Svechnikov’s fourth goal of the season.
Colorado had an opportunity to cut into the lead when Morrissey took a slashing penalty, but the Jets capitalized instead when Lowry chipped the puck out of Winnipeg’s zone, carried it into the Avalanche end and beat Francouz at 16:26 of the first period.
It was his fifth of the season.
Colorado came storming back in the second period. Landeskog scored 3:10 into the frame, and MacKinnon made it 3-2 when he skated through the neutral zone into the Jets’ end, used Jets defenseman Nathan Beaulieu as a screen and beat Hellebuyck at 12:20 of the second.
Landeskog tied it when his deflection of Nichushkin’s shot went over Hellebuyck’s right shoulder at 17:17 of the middle frame.
–Field Level Media
