Avalanche defeat Bruins for sixth straight victory

BOSTON -- The Colorado Avalanche extended their winning streak to a season-high six games and ended the Boston Bruins' 13-game point streak with a 4-1 win at TD Garden on Saturday.

Pavel Francouz replaced injured starter Philipp Grubauer in the first period and made the save on all 16 shots he faced for Colorado (19-8-2), which has won four in a row on the road.
Avalanche coach Jared Bednar said they played one of their best defensive games of the season.
"It's hard to just pick one or two out, but this is definitely one]," he said. "We checked, we played the right way tonight. We got guys above the puck all night, guys were skating and tracking."
***[WATCH: [All Avalanche vs. Bruins highlights]*
Jaroslav Halak made 16 saves for the Bruins (20-4-6), who lost at home in regulation for the first time (12-1-5). Boston, which was coming off a 4-3 overtime loss to the Chicago Blackhawks on Thursday, was 9-0-4 in its past 13 games.
The Bruins went 4-0-1 in their previous five games despite trailing or being tied in the third period of each. Against the Avalanche, falling behind caught up to them.
"That's a losing game. You can't continue to get down by a couple of goals, especially against the really good teams," Boston forward Brad Marchand said. "You know teams like that know how to win, know how to keep the lead, and you know regardless how many times we've come back in the past, eventually it's going to catch up to us. And it did tonight. It is what it is, we move on to the next one."
Chris Wagner deflected John Moore's shot from the left point past Grubauer to give the Bruins a 1-0 lead at 13:14 of the first period.
Valeri Nichushkin tied it 1-1 at 17:25 with his fourth goal in seven games following a 91-game drought.
Grubauer left the game after Nichushkin's goal. He made three saves.
Ian Cole, playing in his 500th NHL game, gave Colorado a 2-1 lead at 9:17 of the second with his first goal of the season in his 24th game.

Andre Burakovsky scored to make it 3-1 at 18:21 of the second when he got behind Boston defenseman Charlie McAvoy on the rush and beat Halak.
"We had a bad start to begin with, and then from there couldn't really recover," Bruins defenseman Brandon Carlo said. "The past couple games, we've been having to fight back, and that just wasn't an option tonight. They did a good job shutting things down. I feel like in the third we got some good opportunities but just didn't put them in the net tonight."
Gabriel Landeskog made it 4-1 with an empty-net goal with 2.2 seconds remaining.
"You know that's a great team over there. A really, really good team," Cole said. "… It's a good measuring stick game for us. We know that we can close games out against good teams. And we just got to keep moving forward."

Avalanche defenseman Cale Makar left the game 4:01 into the third period.
There was no update on Makar or Grubauer after the game.

They said it

"It's not easy, but I feel like it's easier to go there that early. When you sit there for like one or two hours, you're cold. It's way easier to go there [early]. So I was still warm. I saw [Philipp Grubauer] go down, it's not a great feeling, but that's my job to be ready, and the teammates helped me a lot, and it was a pleasure to play behind them today." -- Avalanche goalie Pavel Francouz
"You know we pushed back there at the end, but I think it's a good game to realize that we're not going to continue to win by getting down. So you know it's good to lose, unfortunately, it is good to lose every now and again. And good to be able to right the ship again." -- Bruins forward Brad Marchand

Need to know

The Avalanche are 12-0-1 with one tie in their past 14 games in Boston dating to Feb. 2, 1999. It's their longest road point streak against any opponent. ... It's the first time Colorado has won six in a row since Nov. 18-28, 2018. ... Bruins defenseman Zdeno Chara played in his 1,515th game, passing Steve Yzerman for 20th in NHL history. ... The Bruins' 17-game home point streak to start the season was the second longest in their history. In 1973-74, Boston went 19-0 with two ties in its first 21 at home.

What's next

Avalanche: Host the Calgary Flames on Monday (9 p.m. ET; ESPN+, ALT, SNW, NHL.TV)
Bruins: At the Ottawa Senators on Monday (7:30 p.m. ET; TSN5, RDS, NESN, NHL.TV)