Bedard gave the Blackhawks a 1-0 lead with a power-play goal at 6:31 of the first period. Tyler Bertuzzi sent a cross-ice pass to Bedard in the right face-off circle, where he beat Blackwood to the glove side for his 25th of the season.
“We got to help him, obviously. I mean, it can't just be on Connor. He's doing his job. He's getting scoring chances. He's making plays,” Chicago captain Nick Foligno said. “I mean, he could've had five tonight. So it's on the rest of us to pick it up and find a way to help him out, give him some run support, and that's just only going to make our team better, right? I think we got to figure out how to get more than one goal here and make it count.”
Makar tied it 1-1 at 19:51 of the second period. Five seconds after an Avalanche power play expired, MacKinnon lifted a saucer pass across the ice to Makar, who buried a snap shot to the far side from the right circle.
“I felt like we were grinding all the way from kind of halfway through the first and into the second and doing so many good things, and we just weren't getting the right bounces,” Makar said. “Just felt like we were breaking them down at the end of [the second] period, and then Nate made a great play and tried to throw out there, and you put yourself in good spots, good things happen. So got a little lucky, but it was good.”
Brindley put Colorado up 2-1 at 7:31 of the third period when he located the rebound of Sam Malinski’s point shot along Knight’s right pad and lifted it over the leg of the sprawling goaltender.
“That was just a big one, just confidence-wise,” Brindley said. “Sammy kind of walked, and I just kind of fell [down to] the net and the puck was just sitting there. So fortunate to put it home. Great shot by Sammy. That was a good little sequence there.”
