Fresh off a 7-0 victory over the Ottawa Senators on Saturday, the Colorado Avalanche defeated the Detroit Red Wings 3-1 in a rare weekday matinee game.

The puck dropped shortly after 1:00 PM local time in Ball Arena as the Avalanche took the ice on Martin Luther King Jr. Day.

Colorado struck first, with Artturi Lehkonen scoring five minutes in to the game for his 12th goal of the season, assisted by Cale Makar and Devon Toews.

The Avalanche scored again to take a 2-0 lead, with defenseman Cale Makar putting his own 12th goal of the season in the back of the net off assists from MacKinnon and Valeri Nichushkin on a power play near the end of the first period.

Makar scored again in the second period, assisted again by MacKinnon (his 34th of the season) as well as J.T. Compher to make the score 3-0.

Compher joined in on the scoring action seven minutes later, scoring his 9th goal of the season on a power play, with assists coming from Evan Rodrigues and Samuel Girad.

Not to be left out of the party, captain Nathan MacKinnon scored on a beautiful redirection, assisted by Rodrigues and Toews on a power play. It was MacKinnon’s 12th goal as well, which seemed to be the lucky number of the day.

The Red Wings finally got on the board with 1:02 left in the second period, with Andrew Copp beating Pavel Francouz to cut the score to 5-1.

Detroit then struck first in the third period, with Ben Chiarot netting his 4th goal of the season in a 4-on-4 session to make the score a bit closer at 5-2.

But Detroit’s three-goal deficit grew back to four quickly, with MacKinnon breaking away and beating Magnus Hellberg for an unassisted goal, his fourth point of the night.

Detroit tacked on a third and final goal, scored by Mortiz Seider, with 34 seconds to play.

Colorado won 6-3 to improve to 22-17-3 on the season. The Avalanche’s next game is on Wednesday, where they will travel to Canada to take on the Calgary Flames.

Three points brings the Avalanche’s season total to 48, breaking a tie with the St. Louis Blues for 9th place in the Western Conference. Colorado emerges from the matinee win three points behind the next two teams in the West: the Edmonton Oilers and Wednesday’s opponent, Calgary.

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Header Photo Credits: Colorado Avalanche

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