MacKinnon, Kuemper lead Avalanche to shutout win over Flames

Nathan MacKinnon scored twice, Darcy Kuemper stopped a career-best 46 shots in his fourth shutout of the season and the Colorado Avalanche beat the Calgary Flames 3-0 on Sunday night.

It was a measure of atonement for Kuemper, who was pulled early in the second period last weekend when the top two teams in the Western Conference faced each other in Calgary's 4-3 overtime win.

MacKinnon scored on a power play in the first period and added another goal in the third. Mikko Rantanen sealed it on an empty-net tally with 1:38 remaining to help the Avalanche post their best record through 60 games in franchise history (42-13-5, 89 points).

Dan Vladar made 29 saves against the speedy Avalanche.

The Flames were playing the second game of a back-to-back, but hardly looked sluggish and controlled the tempo early in the game.

Kuemper was not exactly happy when he was yanked last weekend after allowing a third goal. He came up with timely save after timely save Sunday, including a blind block with his stick in the third with teammate Kurtis MacDermid falling into him.

WATCH | MacKinnon scores twice in win over Flames:

It was Kuemper's career-best 28th win of the season.

The Flames stayed in the game during the second period thanks to Vladar. He stopped a wide-open shot by Erik Johnson by sliding over and deflecting the puck with his left pad.

About 15 seconds later, Andre Burakovsky dinged a shot off the post. And then, he faced a goaltender's nightmare: MacKinnon open in front of the net. But Vladar's arm blocked his shot.

Kuemper also came up big on a 2-on-1 break by the Flames.

MacKinnon scored his 20th goal of the season on a wrist shot that got by Vladar midway through the first period to give Colorado a 1-0 lead. The Avalanche