Jacob Markstrom on Saturday night had 32 saves and made three consecutive stops in a shoot-out, helping the Vancouver Canucks beat the Colorado Avalanche 3-2.
Markstrom denied Nathan MacKinnon, Mikko Rantanen and Matt Duchene in the tiebreaker, while Markus Granlund converted his shoot-out opportunity for the Canucks.
Loui Eriksson and Alexandre Burrows scored for Vancouver, who went 2-1-0 on a three-game trip. The Canucks also improved to 4-1-1 in their past six games against the Avalanche.
Goalie Calvin Pickard, starting in place of injured Semyon Varlamov, stopped 29 shots for Colorado. He is 4-1-1 in six starts this season.
Mikhail Grigorenko and Jarome Iginla scored for the Avalanche, who have lost the first two games of their five-game home stand.
Burrows put the Canucks ahead 2-1 just 1 minute, 26 seconds into the third, but 39-year-old Iginla responded with his third of the season at 3 minutes, 56 seconds.
Colorado then came out aggressive in overtime and just missed on several opportunities. Vancouver had a power play in the final 20 seconds, but also came up short.
Early on, the Canucks looked like the more energized team, despite playing the second of a back-to-back. They made the most of an early power play, jumping in front when Eriksson took a pass from Granlund and beat Pickard on the short side.
The Vancouver winger went scoreless in the first 13 games of the year, but now has five goals in his past nine appearances.
Pickard kept the Avalanche in the game with a handful of dazzling saves, including one where he was forced to stretch his leg out to rob Bo Horvat late in the first.
Grigorenko tied it midway through the second period. After chances by Carl Soderberg and Duchene in front of the net, Grigorenko flicked a shot off Markstrom’s back and then poked in the rebound for his second goal of the season.
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