Nick Blankenburg scored with the net empty late in the second period, and the Colorado Avalanche closed their regular season with a 2-0 victory over the Seattle Kraken on Thursday at Ball Arena.
Blankenburg, who scored his eighth goal of the season, finished off a delayed penalty against Seattle at 17:38 of the second period with a shot from above the right goal line. Scott Wedgewood did the rest, making 22 saves for his fourth shutout of the season as Colorado headed into the playoffs with momentum and a record book entry.
Parker Kelly added the insurance goal at 12:19 of the third period, snapping a shot from the left doorstep for his 21st goal of the season. Cale Makar set up the play with a cross-ice feed, and Colorado’s 2-0 win completed a 55-16-11 regular season and gave the Avalanche a franchise-record 121 points.
The result mattered because it was Colorado’s final tune-up before the First Round of the Stanley Cup Playoffs, where the Avalanche will face the Los Angeles Kings on Sunday at 1 p.m. MT. The win gave them a clean finish, a milestone total and a shutout performance that can carry into a postseason series that starts almost immediately.
The oddity was in how Blankenburg’s goal happened. Colorado had pulled its goaltender for the extra skater because of the delayed penalty, and Seattle never got the whistle it wanted before Blankenburg lifted the Avalanche ahead. That left the Kraken chasing a game that Colorado controlled from there, with Wedgewood turning away every Seattle shot he faced.
For Blankenburg, the goal added another mark to a season that already had become a scoring surprise. For Colorado, it was the sort of finish teams want in April: a shutout, a record, and no injuries or late drama before the schedule turns to the postseason.
