After going down 1-0 in the first period, the Avalanche rattled off five unanswered goals, backed by a solid and detailed performance to claim a 5-1 victory over Anaheim. Following a sleepy start to the game and having fallen 1-0 to the Ducks, the Avalanche came alive in the final minutes of the first period to take a 2-1 lead heading into the first intermission.
Anaheim first got on the board at 12:08 as Makar tried to chip the puck out to MacKinnon from the wall, but the puck instead trickled into the slot where Jakob Silfverberg picked it up and backhanded it to the backdoor. Grant crashed the net and tapped the feed past Johansson's left pad.
The Avalanche jolted awake and ushered a firm response.
Byram carried the puck in the offensive zone, skated into the left faceoff circle, turned, curled back to above the left faceoff circle and fired a shot on net. His long-range shot sailed past Logan O'Connor's netfront screen and skimmed off the skate of Simon Benoit and beat Gibson to tie the score up 1-1 at 15:43.
The Avalanche continued to press and put the pressure on. With the clock ticking down, MacKinnon took the puck from the wall, skated below the goal line, turned and curled up to the top of the left faceoff circle and fired a wrist shot short side and over Gibson's right shoulder to give Colorado a 2-1 lead.
Having shown a jolt of energy in the latter half of the first period, the Avalanche carried over the effort in the second period where they put forth a dominant effort as they extended their lead 4-1, and outshot the Ducks 15-9.
Just under four minutes into the middle frame and over the span of 1:41, the Avalanche scored twice with strikes from J. Johnson and Nichushkin.
J. Johnson gathered a low-to-high pass from Denis Malgin at the left wall, walked the blueline and then unleashed a long-range snap shot past Gibson at 2:05. The Avalanche wasted no time in upping their lead 4-1 as they did so just 1:41 later at 3:46.
MacKinnon grabbed a pass from Makar and from atop the left faceoff circle sent a slick cross-ice feed to the backdoor where Nichushkin put away a one timer.
Early in the third period, the Avalanche furthered their lead 5-1 with a power-play goal marking their 12th-straight game with a goal on the man advantage.
Silfverberg was sent to the box at 4:06 for holding. Gibson swatted a deflection from Evan Rodrigues out of the air but the rebound kicked out to the inside of the left faceoff circle, where Girard swooped in and buried his shot into the open net to give the Avalanche a 5-1 lead at 4:22.
With the victory, Colorado (94) now trails Minnesota (95) by one point in the Central Division standings, with the two teams set to clash on Wednesday night at Ball Arena in the regular season finale.
