Avalanche's Valeri Nichushkin: Stars in return

Nichushkin scored a power-play goal and assisted on an overtime goal in Saturday's 3-2 win over the Canadiens. He added two shots on net, two hits and four blocked shots over 17:00 of ice time.

While Nichushkin wasn't named one of the game's three stars, he deserved to be honored as such. He returned after missing a week while in COVID-19 protocols, played well in all phases and gave the Avalanche a lift with his fourth multi-point game of the season. Nichushkin finished a pretty feed from Samuel Girard for his second power-play goal of the season in the second period, then the Russian forward wheeled away from Montreal defenders in overtime before setting up Gabriel Landeskog for the winner. With 11 goals and 19 points over 23 games, Nichushkin is on pace to better his previous highs of 14 tallies and 34 points in 79 games for Dallas in 2013.