Avs HC Jared Bednar makes his thoughts extremely clear on Ross Colton's penalty for crashing into Habs goalie Jakub Dobes

The Colorado Avalanche faced the Montreal Canadiens at Ball Arena on Saturday, where a controversial penalty on Ross Colton sparked debate. At 12:10 in the first period, Colton was penalized for goalkeeper interference after colliding with Canadiens goalie Jakub Dobes.

Avalanche head coach Jared Bednar strongly defended Ross Colton after the game, saying Colton was pushed into the goalie.

"I thought he (Ross Colton) got pushed in on both of them," Bednar said. "In fact, I thought we were gonna (get) a power play on the first one. I don't know how they're supposed to stop. It's not like he's cutting in at an angle. The guy is behind, putting the pressure on him and makes contact in both cases. Try it 100 times and (out of those), 100 times you're not stopping when a guy hits you from behind, coming down on breakaway, it's not going to happen." (2:06)

The Canadiens and Avalanche each had 23 shots on goal. Montreal won 54.2% of face-offs, while Colorado won 45.8%. The Canadiens scored once on five power plays, but the Avalanche went 1-for-3.

The game was in favor of the Avalanche since the start of the first period despite Ross Colton's penalty. Mikko Rantanen scored the first goal on a power play at 9:01. However, the Canadiens tied the game in the third period when Cole Caufield scored during a 2-on-1 play with Nick Suzuki. Both teams played strong defensively, and the game went into overtime and then a shootout.

Caufield and Kirby Dach scored in the shootout for the Canadiens. The Avalanche couldn't capitalize on their chances and lost 2-1. Canadiens goalie Jakub Dobes made 22 saves in his second NHL game.

Apart from Ross Colton's penalty, Avs Coach Jared Bednar talked about offensive lapse

Montreal Canadiens leads the season series 1-0 after the 2-1 shootout win. They will play again on March 22 in Colorado. Bednar noted the Avalanche's strong defensive play but said they didn’t create enough offensive chances.

“I think it was pretty low-event for two teams that are sort of cooking offensively right now, but the goalies were good,” Bednar said via NHL.com, “We were good defensively, responsible, checked hard against a team that tops the league right now in creating offense. But we didn't do a good enough job creating offense ourselves. Pretty low-event hockey game from our standards on the offensive side of it.”

Rantanen’s power-play goal was his 100th career power-play goal, and he extended his point streak to 13 games. Caufield extended his goal streak to three games, contributing to the Canadiens’ seventh win in their last 10 games.