Colorado Avalanche center Nathan MacKinnon, left, celebrates with Mikko Rantanen after MacKinnon scored an empty-net goal against the Nashville Predators to seal Colorado's win in the third period in Game 4 of an NHL hockey first-round playoff series on May 9, 2022, in Nashville, Tenn. The Avalanche won 5-3 to sweep the series 4-0.Mark Humphrey/The Associated Press
Valeri Nichushkin scored the tiebreaking goal with 7:58 left, and the Colorado Avalanche became the first team to advance to the second round Monday night by finishing a sweep of the Nashville Predators 5-3 Monday night.
The Avalanche now are in the Western Conference semi-finals for a fourth straight season and second consecutive after sweeping their first-round opponent. They improved to 6-0 since the franchise relocated to Denver in best-of-seven series after winning the first three games with their fourth sweep in that span.
They now get to wait for either St. Louis or Minnesota after what Avs defenceman Cale Makar called step one.
“You enjoy it for a little bit, but then you move on,” Makar said. “Obviously, we don’t know who our opponent is yet, but it’s going to be a familiar team. For us, it’s already to that next step. We’re where we want it to be, but we have to make sure that we can stay tight throughout this little break that we have.”
Andre Burakovsky and Cale Makar each had a goal and two assists for Colorado, and Devon Toews added a goal. Nathan MacKinnon sealed the victory with an empty-net goal on the man advantage with 55.9 seconds remaining.
Yakov Trenin scored twice for Nashville, which was swept for the first time in franchise history in its 15th playoff appearance. Filip Forsberg scored his first of the series giving Nashville its first lead this series at 3:58 of the third. Colton Sissons had two assists.
“The fact that we weren’t able to win a game is something that we all take personal for sure,” Nashville coach John Hynes said.
Colorado scored three times over the final 11:05 to wrap up a series by outscoring Nashville 21-9. After Toews tied it 3-3 at 8:55 of the third, Nichushkin scored on a snap shot from the right circle to put the Avs ahead to stay.
The Predators had a few open seats midway into the first period. Not even having Walker Zimmerman, a defender for MLS’ Nashville SC, wave the pre-game rally towel helped.
Colorado wound up scoring on its first shot attempt of the game for the second time this series, even if replay was needed to call it a goal.
Burakovsky’s wrister sent the puck through the back net, a shot that had the Avalanche starting to celebrate before an official immediately waved it off During a stoppage at 1:56, officials reviewed the play and saw the puck go through the net needing an official to fix the net behind Predators rookie goalie Connor Ingram.
The rookie goalie had to make a save on a short-handed attempt by the Avs on Nashville’s first power play, and Colorado had two more shot attempts than the Predators. The Avs outshot Nashville 13-6 dominating the first until Trenin got his second of this series on a wrister from the slot with 61 seconds left in the period.
Makar put Colorado up 2-1 with a snap shot from near the blue line at 13:33 of the second, and he nearly scored again on a breakaway about 2 minutes later only to have Ingram stop the puck with his left pad.
“Anytime you get a chance to end a team’s season, you take it and run,” Makar said. “You try at least. For us tonight, there was a lot of ups and downs, but we wanted this one. I think just the resilience in general showed from our group.”
Trenin tied it again, this time with 3:11 left in the second. He spun in the right circle and fired a wrister past Pavel Francouz.
Forsberg scored into an open net behind Francouz off a cross-ice pass from Mattias Ekholm, giving Nashville a 3-2 lead in the third.
“You never want to go out 4-nothing,” Nashville captain Roman Josi said. “It’s tough right now. ... I thought our two home games, we played a lot better. But yeah we didn’t get it done. We didn’t get a win, so yeah it’s definitely disappointing.”
Sweep time
The Avalanche also swept St. Louis in the first round of the 2021 playoffs, Vancouver in the Western quarter-finals in 2001 and the 1996 Stanley Cup Final against Florida.
Norris Trophy finalists
Josi and Makar were announced as finalists earlier Monday for the Norris Trophy. Josi won the Norris in 2020, and he posted the best scoring season since Phil Housley in 1992-93 with 96 points – a franchise record for the Predators.
Makar is a finalist for a second straight season. He led defencemen with 28 goals, and he became the eighth defenceman in NHL history with seven or more points through the first three games of a post-season and first since John Carlson also had seven in 2018.