The Colorado Avalanche and the San Jose Sharks met on Wednesday for the second time this year. The Sharks on November 1 delivered Colorado its last loss. Thus, Colorado’s 6–0 victory over the Sharks might be considered their getting payback for the loss. The Avalanche used every single line to score and even got the power-play involved, for once. With the win, the Avalanche improved their win-streak to ten games and still have lost only one game in regulation through 23 games. The Avalanche tied the second- longest winning streak in franchise history. The shutout was the third consecutive shutout, and the last time the Avs did that was November 14–18, 2001.

View from the Mountaintop

The Avalanche showed depth in their scoring ability. They had goals from the defense, second line, fourth line and the power play. Last season, the Avalanche were only getting goals from their top-six forwards. Now they are getting goals from every position on the ice. None of the goals on Wednesday night, surprisingly, came from defenseman Cale Makar. Although he had an assist on the power-play goal scored by Nathan MacKinnon in the first period.

Sam Malinski has taken a step forward this year. Malinski scored one goal by the defensemen. His positioning was a little rough to start the year because he was playing on his off-side. He has since switched back to his natural side and excelled with the help of veteran Brent Burns. Malinski scored his second goal on Wednesday and has already tied his career-high assists mark from last season.

Joel Kiviranta returned to the Avalanche in high fashion. He had missed 17 games because of a lower-body injury, but that did not slow him down. He played 13:19 of ice time, and almost three minutes of it was on the penalty kill. But that is not what stood out. Only nine seconds after Josh Manson scored, Kiviranta put one in the back of the net. He took a sweet pass from Ivan Ivan in front of the crease and tapped the puck in for his first goal of the season.

Up Next

The Avalanche will battle their division foe, the Minnesota Wild, on Friday at 1:30 p.m. MT. Altitude Sports will broadcast the game.