The Colorado Avalanche wrapped up their final road trip of the 2025-26 regular season on Tuesday night against the Calgary Flames at Scotiabank Saddledome, looking to turn one more stop into another proof point after a shootout win in Edmonton a day earlier. Puck drop was set for 7 p.m. MT, with the game carried on KTVD-20, Altitude and Altitude+, and heard on Altitude Sports Radio at 92.5 FM.
Colorado arrived in Calgary with momentum and with a season series already in hand. The Avalanche beat the Flames 9-2 in Denver on March 30 and 3-1 in Colorado on April 9, leaving this as the third and final meeting between the teams in the regular season. Nathan MacKinnon entered the night with an NHL-leading 52 goals, plus 126 points and 74 assists, while Martin Necas had 99 points. The numbers underlined how much danger Colorado can bring even on a compressed road trip.
That edge showed up again Monday in Edmonton, where the Avalanche beat the Oilers 2-1 in a shootout. Sam Malinski opened the scoring at 9:05 of the second period for his eighth goal of the season, Connor McDavid tied it at 15:09 of the middle frame, and Colorado killed off all three Edmonton power plays. Scott Wedgewood stopped 30 of 31 shots, then Nathan MacKinnon finished the night in the shootout after Valeri Nichushkin and Necas also scored. McDavid and Ryan Nugent-Hopkins answered for Edmonton, but not enough to stop Colorado.
The backdrop to Tuesday’s game was as stark as the results. Since April 4, Colorado had allowed just 1.50 goals per game, the fewest in the NHL, and the Avalanche entered with an 84.3% penalty kill that ranked best in the league. MacKinnon’s production has driven much of that surge, and Malinski has been part of it too; his four goals since March 30 were tied for the most among NHL defensemen in that span.
Calgary, meanwhile, came in after a 4-1 win over Utah on Sunday at the same building. The Flames jumped out to a 2-0 lead on first-period goals from Matt Coronato and Connor Zary, then added third-period goals from Mikael Backlund and Brayden Pachal. Coronato led Calgary with 44 points and 26 assists, while Morgan Frost led the club with 21 goals and Backlund was tied for second on the Flames with 42 points and had 25 assists.
The tension in this matchup is simple: Colorado has already owned Calgary this season, but the Flames have a home-ice chance to keep the Avalanche from finishing the trip with one more clean result. The teams have met 136 previous times in the regular season, with Colorado holding a 68-54-8-6 edge, and the Avalanche also beat Calgary in five games in the 2019 Western Conference First Round. That history gives Tuesday’s meeting a little extra bite, even if the bigger story remains Colorado’s form heading into the stretch run.
For the Avalanche, the question now is not whether the roster can score or defend. It is whether that mix holds long enough to carry through the final games of the regular season and into the part of the year where every mistake gets louder.
