Coyle has four points, Blue Jackets ease past Avalanche

COLUMBUS -- Charlie Coyle scored twice and tied his NHL career high with four points for the Columbus Blue Jackets, who had a four-goal second period in a 7-2 win against the Colorado Avalanche at Nationwide Arena on Tuesday.

Mathieu Olivier had a goal and two assists, Valeri Nichushkin and Cole Sillinger each had a goal and an assist, and Zach Werenski added two assists for the Blue Jackets (6-7-0), who had lost two straight. Cam Talbot made 27 saves.

“You want guys to get going and feeling good about themselves, especially in games like this,” Coyle said. “It's great for a team to have these wins, just kind of knowing that we're trending in the right way.

“You want to get rewarded for playing the right way. It's hockey. It's not always going to be the case. The team that plays the best doesn't always win, right? But trusting our game, especially when it hasn't been consistent, but we're seeing that consistency more and more and to get a good result to kind of give us confidence to stay that way is a big one for us.”

Cale Makar had a goal and an assist, and Nathan MacKinnon had two assists for the Avalanche (9-6-1), who had won their previous three, including a 5-2 victory at the Chicago Blackhawks on Monday. Scott Wedgewood allowed four goals on nine shots in 27:20 before being relieved by Mackenzie Blackwood, who made 12 saves.

“Every game there's a lot to learn from, but some of them, part of it, you've just got to flush it down the toilet and move on,” Colorado captain Gabriel Landeskog said. 

Olivier made it 1-0 at 28 seconds of the first period, scoring from the edge of the crease on the rebound of a Coyle shot.

Ivan Provorov increased the lead to 2-0 on the power play at 7:37 with a point shot through traffic.

Nichushkin assisted on the goal in his first game against the Avalanche since they traded him to the Blue Jackets on June 25 after 404 games with Colorado.

“We've talked about a lot of things and we're going to show some promise, play some good games, and that's the thing, it's hot, cold, hot, cold,” Avalanche coach Jared Bednar said. “So, it's about consistency. So now I have to sort of change my approach and the way I handle the inconsistencies in the game.”

Makar cut it to 2-1 at 10:57 with a one-timer from low in the right circle after a cross-ice pass from MacKinnon.

The Blue Jackets then scored four times in an 8:23 span of the second period to pull away.

Jake Christiansen made it 3-1 at 4:19 with a shot from the point after an Olivier pass.

Sillinger extended the lead to 4-1 at 7:20, chasing Wedgewood. The forward needed two backhand whacks to score from the left side after getting the rebound of a Werenski shot from the point.

“It just seems like when one thing goes wrong, everything seems to go wrong for us,” Makar said.

The line of Sillinger, Coyle and Olivier combined for nine points (four goals, five assists) and was tasked with stopping Colorado’s top line of Artturi Lehkonen, MacKinnon and Martin Necas, which was a combined minus-9.

“We were just clicking,” Sillinger said. “I thought we played responsible in all three zones and when you're responsible in your defensive zone, that tends to lead to good offense. For the last couple of games here our team was playing really good hockey. It's just a matter of that execution and that that finishing ability, and now we put up seven tonight. So, it's good for our group, good for our guys to get rewarded but more importantly, obviously big for our team to get a good one here.”

Coyle pushed it to 5-1 at 12:03, and Nichushkin powered a shot past Blackwood on the rush to make it 6-1 at 12:42.

“There's a lot of guys in there that can score goals and put points up,” Blue Jackets coach Rick Bowness said. “It finally went in for us tonight.”

Nazem Kadri pulled Colorado within 6-2 at 16:35 with a 5-on-3 power-play goal, burying a rebound from the right side of the slot.

Coyle scored again at 11:21 of the third period for the 7-2 final.

NOTES: Blue Jackets forward Conor Garland had an assist on Provorov’s goal for his first point in 21 games dating to March 29 of last season. He is without a goal in his past 27 games. … Werenski has six assists in a four-game point streak. … MacKinnon extended his point streak to six games (11 points; three goals, eight assists).