MONTREAL — The Colorado Avalanche ran out of gas Saturday night, about 11 minutes from the end of a fantastic road trip through eastern Canada.
Then the new guys salvaged it, anyway.
Brock Nelson and Charlie Coyle scored in the shootout to help the Avs shake a late collapse and claim a 5-4 win Saturday night at Bell Centre. In the end, the Avs were a couple of fluky goals against in Toronto from a three-game sweep on the trip. This one wasn’t pretty in the third period, but it was two points and keeps Colorado on a 10-1-1 run in its past 12 contests.
“I thought it was a great hockey game,” Avs coach Jared Bednar said. “I thought we were really good for long stretches of that game. Obviously, there was about a seven-minute window there in the third where we didn’t handle their pushback quite as good as we could have, but we stuck with it and bounced back.”
Colorado was cruising to the end of this trip, but three Montreal goals in less than three minutes flipped this contest and reignited a raucous crowd. Joshua Roy and Juraj Slafkovsky scored 30 seconds apart to cut the Avs’ advantage to 4-3 with 10:06 still to play.
Lane Hutson hit the post and Cole Caufield nearly scored as the Habs surged, and then Christian Dvorak did tie the game with 6:28 remaining on a backhanded shot after a Colorado turnover.
“You go up 4-1 and I don’t think you can sit back,” Avs defenseman Cale Makar said. “It’s a weird one. I think you mentally check out for that half of a second, and that’s when they get the opportunity. Then it compounds and compounds and compounds.
“That’s a huge learning game for us, and I’m glad it happened now rather than later.”
Montreal clawed back to force overtime, but a Canadiens penalty gave the Avalanche ample opportunities to find a winner. Montembeault made eight saves in the extra five minutes to get Montreal to the shootout.
Bednar gave a former Habs player an assist for picking Nelson to take the final shot in the shootout.
“I was getting ready to go with (Jonathan) Drouin,” Bednar said. “Drouin told me to go with Nelson, that his move would beat (Samuel Montembeault). Sometimes the players know a little bit more than us from watching each other after practices, before practices.
“So (Drouin) actually made that call.”
Sam Malinski put the Avs in front with his third goal of the season at 7:35 of the first. Ross Colton started the rush in his own end, entered the offensive zone and sent the puck to Joel Kiviranta in the right circle. Kiviranta dropped it to a trailing Malinski, and the defenseman hammered a one-timer past Montreal goalie Samuel Montembeault.
Colton had 15 points in 42 games for the season after a 3-1 loss in St. Louis on Feb. 23. He now has 12 points in the past 12 contests. Kiviranta also has one point in his seven of his past 11 games after having just 16 in the first 60.
Ryan Lindgren made it a two-goal lead fewer than three minutes later. Artturi Lehkonen got the puck out of a wall scrum into the slot, and then Nelson made a great play to snag it and then feed Lindgren despite an oncoming defender for a 2-0 lead at 10:09.
The Habs had a 12-7 advantage in hits after one period, including several big ones. But Colorado had a 16-6 advantage in shots.
Martin Necas made it a 3-0 advantage on the power play at 5:24 of the second. Nathan MacKinnon tried to set up Valeri Nichushkin in the slot, but the Russian’s stick was lifted. The puck continued on to Drouin on the right flank, and he quickly snapped a pass to Necas at the left post for a lay-up.
