The Colorado Avalanche are officially hot, and so is star winger Mikko Rantanen.
Rantanen earned his second hat trick of the young season and the Avs skated past the Los Angeles Kings 4-2 on Wednesday night. Rantanen also had three goals in Colorado’s first game of the season, a forgettable 8-4 loss to the Vegas Golden Knights. Alexandar Georgiev struggled that evening, but has found his groove the last handful of games.
Georgiev only faced 15 shot against the Kings, but did enough to keep them off the scoresheet the rest of the way after two first period tallies. In fact, Colorado held Los Angeles without a single shot on goal in the second period.
But the star of the night was Rantanen, who got a late empty-netter that let the faithful at Ball Arena toss their hats onto the ice.
RAINING HATS FOR THE MIKKO RANTANEN HATTY 🎩 pic.twitter.com/pMDGPlUovK
— B/R Open Ice (@BR_OpenIce) November 14, 2024
Rantanen scored his first goal in the second period to tie things 2-2, against old friend Darcy Kuemper. Unfortunately Kuemper, who was the Avalanche’s goalie on their 2022 Stanley Cup team, had to leave the game in the third period with an injury.
Rantanen had no problem solving L.A. backup David Rittich to make it 3-2 Colorado after that, before adding the insurance goal late. This is Rantanen’s ninth hat trick of his career, good for fourth in Avalanche franchise history.
And Colorado finds itself over .500 at 9-8-0 and winners of four of its last five games. Plus, the suspended Valeri Nichushkin will return on Friday night, and Jonathan Drouin and Miles Wood could both be back in the lineup as well.
Mikko Rantanen was the hero against the Kings, and more help is coming. The rest of the NHL should watch out.
