To the delight of the Colorado Avalanche, Jonathan Drouin scored his first goal with the team that signed him last summer on Monday, and head coach Jared Bednar hopes that success is the sign of an interesting offensive series.
In the third period of a 5-1 win over the Seattle Kraken, the Quebec native accepted the handoff from teammate Nathan MacKinnon, who had helped him shine in the junior ranks. He scored his first goal in the National Hockey League since March 21, when he played for the Montreal Canadiens.
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If he has struggled this season, the 28-year-old Quebecer wants to build on the positives to get back on track: He has only one goal and two assists in 12 games and has already found himself in the press box a few times just. In his opinion, the recipe for success is concise for both him and his team.
“I think we kept it simple. We put shots toward the net and created traffic in the process. This allowed us to dominate the last two periods,” commented Drouin on the website NHL.com, who collected 29 points, including two assists, in 58 duels with the Habs in 2022-2023.
After earning his 300th career victory, Bednar obviously noticed this goal from the forward, who has a one-year, $825,000 contract. “As a coach, you want all your players to be rewarded for their hard work,” he said. One way to do that is to give them more playing time, but adequate production is their goal and what it takes to win games.”
ups and downs
In fact, the Avalanche cannot take anything for granted. Before the triumph in Seattle, the club suffered an 8-2 defeat at home against the St. Louis Blues on Saturday. Despite sitting second in the Central Section of the National League with a record of 9-5-0, he needs to keep up the pace and avoid more defeats like this. And Bednar was clearly aware of this after his troupe’s disastrous performance.
“It was the worst period of hockey I’ve ever seen on our team,” he told the media, referring to Saturday’s final engagement. The boys gave up and didn’t achieve what they were supposed to out of pity.”
Colorado hosts the Anaheim Ducks on Wednesday.