Rangers Vs. Avalanche: Craig Anderson Sharp In Colorado's 5-1 Victory Over New York

In his return from injury, Avalanche goalie Craig Anderson showed he didn’t experience any rust from his layoff since Oct. 26. Anderson made 25 saves on 26 shots and was the second star of the game in the Avalanche’s 5-1 victory over the New York Rangers.

Youngster Matt Duchene, the top star, had a goal and two assists. He collected all three points in the second period, which was when Colorado scored four of its five goals. He assisted on Kevin Porter’s and Kevin Shattenkirk’s goals. Duchene briefly left the rink after Ruslan Fedotenko cross checked him in the neck, but it didn’t slow him down when he returned.

Shattenkirk now has two goals on the season. David Jones and Daniel Winnik scored the other goals.

The New York Rangers replaced starting goalie Henrik Lundqvist with Martin Biron after Duchene’s goal put Colorado up 3-0 in the second. Derek Stepan scored a goal at 6:03 in the third period to spoil the potential shutout.

Riding a three-game winning streak, the Avalanche are now 11-7-1 with 23 points and tied for the Northwest division lead with the Vancouver Canucks.

After a quiet first period, the Colorado Avalanche opened up the offense with four goals in the second period. Matt Duchene dominated the period with a goal and two assists. He also took a nasty cross check to the jaw/neck by Ruslan Fedotenko, Though he left the ice for a couple of minutes, Duchene returned shortly thereafter.

Duchene’s first point came when he fed the puck to the net and Kevin Porter then got it into the net. He had a nice wrist shot to score a goal on Henrik Lundqvist, who then was replaced with Martin Biron. But the replacement didn’t help all that much as Duchene assisted on Kevin Shattenkirk’s second goal of the season.

David Jones scored at 1:04 in the period to start things off, with an assist going to Chris Stewart.

Craig Anderson has stopped all 18 shots he has faced.

The Colorado Avalanche and the New York Rangers are tied at zero after one period of play. Avalanche goalie Craig Anderson has not missed a beat in his first game since Oct. 26 when he injured his knee during warm-ups. He has stopped all nine shots faced so far.

Neither team was able to capitalize on their power play opportunities, the Rangers on Brandon Yip’s interference of Brandon Prust and the Avalanche on Daniel Girardi’s hooking of Paul Stastny.