Ryan Donato nets pair as Blackhawks take down Avalanche

Ryan Donato had two goals and an assist, Philipp Kurashev and Lukas Reichel also scored, and the Chicago Blackhawks beat the Colorado Avalanche 5-2 in Denver on Monday night.

Ilya Mikheyev scored his first goal of the season, Jason Dickinson had two assists and Petr Mrazek turned away 24 shots for Chicago. The Blackhawks snapped a four-game skid.

Nathan MacKinnon had a goal to extend his points streak to 10 games to begin the season, Casey Mittelstadt also scored and Alexandar Georgiev made 21 saves for Colorado, which had its five-game winning streak ended.

Ross Colton, the Avalanche’s leading goal scorer, did not play in the third period.

Chicago went ahead 1-0 when Kurashev scored on a slap shot above the left circle at 8:47 of the first period, his second of the season.

Kurashev’s goal sparked a high-scoring opening period.

Just 1:29 later Logan O’Connor left a drop pass for Mittelstadt, who skated deep into the slot and beat Mrazek for his sixth goal of the season. Reichel’s first of the season 48 seconds after Mittelstadt’s marker gave the Blackhawks a 2-1 lead, and Donato made it 3-1 at 16:56.

Colorado had a 5-on-3 man advantage after Tyler Bertuzzi and Wyatt Kaiser took minor penalties a minute apart late in the first. The Avalanche capitalized when MacKinnon got the puck in the neutral zone, skated into the Blackhawks’ zone, around defenseman Seth Jones and slid a shot by Mrazek at 19:17.

It was his fifth of the season.

Neither team could score in the second and third period but Colorado carried the play later in the final frame The Avalanche missed on good scoring chances and then had to kill off a minor for goaltender interference at 15:54.

They got control of the puck and Georgiev went off for an extra skater with 1:52 left. Donato scored into the empty net at 19:02, his fifth of the season, and he assisted on Mikheyev’s empty-netter at 19:41.

–Field Level Media