Levshunov Makes NHL Debut, Wedgewood Walls Chicago Blackhawks

The chilling mountain air in Colorado seemed to freeze the Blackhawks’ offensive efforts solid, despite two periods of hard-fought, scoreless hockey, as the Avalanche, with a ruthless efficiency that has become their hallmark, skated to a 3-0 shutout victory on Monday, March 10th, extending their win streak to a formidable six games while simultaneously shattering Chicago’s five-game point streak. Artyom Levshunov’s NHL debut revealed a solid, well-rounded performance, with a noticeable impact on both ends of the ice. Scott Wedgewood delivered a masterful performance in net, securing his second shutout of the season and eighth of his NHL career with a composed 21-save effort. The Avalanche will head out on the road for two games, starting with the Minnesota Wild on Tuesday, before returning home to host the Dallas Stars. The Blackhawks continue their road trip on Thursday in San Jose, hoping to make a comeback after this shutout.

Colorado Avalanche Lineup:

Lehkonen – MacKinnon – Necas
Drouin – Nelson – Nichushkin
Kiviranta – Coyle – Colton
Wood – Drury – Vesey

Toews – Makar
Lindgren – Manson
Girard – Johnson

Wedgewood
Blackwood

Chicago Blackhawks Lineup:

Dach – Bedard – Dickinson
Teravainen – Donato – Mikheyev
Slaggert – Nazar – Foligno
Reichel – Veleno – Bertuzzi

Del Mastro – Murphy
Vlasic – Kaiser
Martinez – Levshunov

Knight
Soderblom

After two scoreless periods and what appeared to be a goal by Martin Necas in the first period, but was successfully challenged for offsides, Atturi Lehkonen found the back of the net early in the opening minute of the third frame. Nathan MacKinnon carried the puck around behind the net, coming out from the right side, and skated down near the blue line to pass it off to Devon Toews. From the blue line far side, Toews fired and Lehkonen redirected it past Spencer Knight for his 27th goal of the season to put the Avalanche ahead 1-0. Necas put one past Knight at 16:33 of the third to make it 2-0 from the left hash marks, going top shelf over Knight’s glove on a wrist shot after he took a pass from MacKinnon, who got ahold of the puck by the right boards before skating up and finding Necas in the left circle. With 54 seconds remaining in regulation, Joel Kiviranta struck the empty Chicago net for the 3-0 final.

Nick Foligno on performance and the loss: “That’s what sucks. You feel like you probably play one of your better games in a while, even though we’ve gotten points in the past few. We were dialed in. We were dominating some aspects of the game. That’s a good team over there, obviously, and when you don’t get any run support, it’s tough to beat a team like that, that you kind of let hang around, and they have enough skill to make you pay. That’s what they did tonight. A good lesson for us, but we got to be proud of the way we were playing, especially the past six here.”

Game Notes:

– Nathan MacKinnon had a two-point night, which had gotten him to the 1,000-point mark. He’s the fourth-fastest active player to reach this mark, following Connor McDavid (659 GP), Sidney Crosby (757 GP), and Evgeni Malkin (848 GP). …MacKinnon is the 100th player in NHL history to reach the 1,000-point plateau. …He also became the third player to post 1,000 points in Avalanche/Quebec Nordiques history, joining both Joe Sakic (1,641) and Peter Stastny (1,048).

– MacKinnon extended his home point streak to 20 games.

– The Avalanche swept a six-game homestand for the first time in Avalanche/Quebec Nordiques history.

– CO: 39-24-2, CHI: 20-36-9

– Spencer Knight made a total of 18 saves for Chicago.

– The Blackhawks have lost two in a row and three of four.

– This is the first time this season where the Blackhawks were shutout. Last season, they were shutout 12 times.

– In his NHL debut, Artyom Levshunov had six shot attempts, three shots on goal, and two blocked shots in 20:55 of ice time.

– Jason Dickinson made his return to the lineup after having missed 11 games with a high ankle sprain. He finished minus-2 in 17:16 of ice time.

– During the third period, it appeared that Connor Bedard was going for The Michigan but decided against it.