Colorado Avalanche 'close to perfect' in Game 2 blowout of Lightning, Jared Bednar says

DENVER — The Colorado Avalanche walloped the Tampa Bay Lightning 7-0 in Game 2 of the Stanley Cup Finals on Saturday to take a commanding 2-0 series lead over the two-time defending Cup champions.

It was a performance so good that even Avalanche coach Jared Bednar had no real notes on how to improve.

«It was certainly as close to perfect of a game as you can get from your players,» Bednar said. «Coming out of Game 1 we were dangerous offensively, but I thought there was another step for our group. We evaluated that, we showed them some things and they did a nice job. And on the defensive side we were way better tonight. It wasn't even close. I thought we made some big mistakes that led to goals against in Game 1. We got better in those areas, amongst others.»

It's no small feat to ring up seven goals on an all-world netminder like Andrei Vasilevskiy either. But Colorado had his number from the get go.

Valeri Nichushkin had the Avalanche rolling early in the first period with a power-play goal, and then Josh Manson followed up with a one-timer past Vasilevskiy off the rush. Andre Burakovsky had Colorado leading 3-0 after the opening 20 minutes. Shot attempts favored Colorado 24-10.

In the second, it was Nichushkin again extending Colorado's lead, followed by a terrific individual effort by Darren Helm to make it 5-0.

Less than three minutes into the third period Cale Makar added a shorthanded goal to the rout. He added another on the power play to make it 7-0, becoming just the fourth player in NHL history to score shorthanded and on the man advantage in a Cup Final game. The others were Gordie Howe, Glen Wesley, and Trevor Linden.

That sort of output would be impressive against any goalie, let alone a Vezina Trophy