Joel Kiviranta’s hat trick carries Avs over Kraken

Joel Kiviranta notched his first hat trick, Cale Makar had a goal and two assists and the Colorado Avalanche beat the Seattle Kraken 5-2 in Denver on Sunday night.

Valeri Nichushkin also scored, Nathan MacKinnon and Mikko Rantanen had two assists each and Mackenzie Blackwood stopped 17 shots for Colorado, which has won three straight and four of its last five heading into the holiday break.

Jared McCann scored, Kaapo Kakko got his first goal with Seattle and Joey Daccord made 24 saves.

Makar put Colorado ahead 1-0 with a power-play goal midway through the first period. He got a pass from MacKinnon, drifted along the point and sent a wrister through traffic that beat Daccord at 10:05.

The Kraken got even late in the first when Shane Wright fed McCann in the slot and he put a snap shot by Blackwood at 17:55, and the visitors went ahead early in the second period.

Matty Beniers won a faceoff against MacKinnon right back to Kakko, and his quick shot got by Blackwood at 4:01, but Colorado responded 11 seconds later.

MacKinnon carried the puck into the Seattle zone and skated in on net while fending off defenseman Jamie Oleksiak. MacKinnon put a shot on goal that Daccord stopped, but Nichushkin cleaned up the rebound to tie the game at 4:12.

The Avalanche took the lead before intermission when Makar flipped the puck out of his own zone and Rantanen picked it up in the neutral zone to start an odd-man rush. He skated into the Kraken zone, slid a pass over to Kiviranta, and his one-timer beat Daccord high at 12:01.

The teams traded chances in the third and Daccord came off for an extra skater with 2:43 left. Nine seconds later, Kiviranta scored into the empty net, then finished off his natural hat trick with another empty-netter at 18:28 for his career-high 10th goal of the season.

–Field Level Media