Riding a winning streak, you wouldn't expect that the Colorado Avalanche would have that much difficult beating the Columbus Blue Jackets, one of the NHL's weakest teams this season. And yet, Columbus leads 1-0 after the first period at the Pepsi Center on Thursday night.
If there is one thing that the Blue Jackets do somewhat well, it's score on the power play. So far this season, they're 18th in the NHL at converting in those situations. That's precisely what they did in the first period against Colorado, too, as Columbus' Nikita Nikitin scored his third goal of the season with the man advantage to give the Blue Jackets an early 1-0 advantage.
The Avalanche had eight shots in the period, but Blue Jackets goaltender Steve Mason stopped them all. In addition to the Blue Jackets' successful power play, each team also had one failed opportunity in the period, as well. Colorado has won four straight games since losing 5-1 to Winnipeg on Feb. 19.
For more coverage, visit our Avalanche blog Mile High Hockey and our Blue Jackets blog Jackets Cannon.