DENVER (AP) Colorado had speed and youth. Nashville brought experience and know-how.It was plain to see which won out – this time.Mattias Ekholm ignited the offense early with the first goal by a Nashville defenseman in the series Columbus Blue Jackets Hoodies Authentic , Pekka Rinne stopped 22 shots and the top-seeded Predators advanced to the second round with a 5-0 victory over the Avalanche in Game 6 on Sunday night.Austin Watson , Filip Forsberg , Nick Bonino and Viktor Arvidsson also scored to help the Predators move on to face Winnipeg. They were 3-1-1 against the Jets in the regular season.”I’m very impressed the way (the Avalanche) played. They played very modern hockey, with a lot of speed,” said Rinne, who notched his fourth career postseason shutout as the Predators won the series 4-2. ”Great game. Great team effort. We didn’t give them any life.”Nashville removed any sort of drama with two goals in the opening period and two more in the second to hush the capacity crowd. That’s the sort of game plan the Predators envisioned.”I think that was our best game from start to finish,” Watson said. ”That’s good for us going forward, to be able to take the last game of this series and carry that into how we want to play in the next one.”Andrew Hammond ran out of magic in net, allowing five goals. The third-string goaltender nicknamed ”Hamburglar” had 44 saves during a Game 5 win in Nashville to extend the series. But he couldn’t turn back a formidable Nashville offense that won a second straight playoff contest in Denver. Before this, the Avalanche hadn’t lost two straight at the Pepsi Center since early December.”It’s disappointing to us and I’m sure it’s disappointing to fans,” Avalanche captain Gabriel Landeskog said. ”It means a lot to us that they did give us a standing ovation at the end.”Watson tormented Colorado with four goals and seven points in the series. In all, 11 of Nashville’s forwards had at least a point over six games.The one thing missing was contributions from a blue line that tied a franchise record for goals during the regular season. The Predators `D’ was held scoreless until Ekholm’s slap shot at 7:20.Forsberg scored 38 seconds into second to give Nashville a 3-0 lead and completely drain the energy out of the arena. Bonino added another to go with his two assists.The closest Colorado came to scoring on Rinne was in the second period, when Nikita Zadorov sent in a shot Columbus Blue Jackets Hats Authentic , but it was waved off due to goaltender interference on Carl Soderberg.”Every line that went out there took a lot of pride in playing good defense, even at the end with the game 5-0. We still protected the net,” Rinne said. ”Guys wanted to get me that shutout.”It was quite a bounce-back season for Colorado, which boasts one of the youngest teams in the league. The Avalanche went from a 48-point team in 2016-17 to 95 points this season, earning the last playoff spot on the final day of the regular season. The Avs are the first NHL team to post that sort of turnaround from one full season to the next since Pittsburgh also jumped 47 points in 2005-06 (58) to `06-07 (105).”There are a lot of positives for sure,” said Nathan MacKinnon, who was held to one shot Sunday. ”Everybody thought we weren’t going to make it, that we were going to be the odd-team-out in the West. Obviously, it’s nice to prove some people wrong and have a good young team going forward.”In the handshake line after the game, Nashville coach Peter Laviolette had some encouraging words for MacKinnon.”He thought our team was up-and-coming, similar to their team,” MacKinnon recounted. ”Definitely, it’s a good team to be compared to.”Colorado ran into a Predators squad that looked every bit like the team that went to the Stanley Cup Final a season ago and won the Presidents’ Trophy this season. They’re clicking on all cylinders heading into the Winnipeg series.”These guys have been flying around for six games Custom Columbus Blue Jackets Jerseys , playing really fast hockey,” Forsberg said. ”We’ve been trying to play as fast as we can as well. If we can bring that speed into the next round that will be good.”NOTES: The Predators improved to 6-6 all-time in a Game 6 situation. … F Colton Sissons had two assists. … RW Ryan Hartman was a scratch after being suspended for Game 5 for a hit on Soderberg. … D P.K. Subban had high praise for MacKinnon: ”My expectations for him as a player is to be a Hall of Famer by the end of his career.”— PITTSBURGH (AP) — A big second period ended up being just enough for the Calgary Flames.Michael Frolik had the first of four second-period goals for Calgary, and the Flames held on to snap a season-long four-game skid with a 5-4 win over the Pittsburgh Penguins on Saturday.Frolik, Austin Czarnik, Travis Hamonic and Sam Bennett scored during a mid-game 17-minute span for Calgary, which held off a late Pittsburgh charge that included a pair of third-period power-play goals by Evgeni Malkin.“They’re a good team and they had a good pushback there at the end,” said Bennett, whose goal with 1:29 left in the second period ended up being decisive. “We got on our heels a little bit, but in the end, we gutted it out and that’s a huge win for our team after not the best showing in the last couple games.”Calgary got its only win on a four-game, eight-day trip and avenged a 9-1 loss to Pittsburgh in October during the teams’ other meeting this season.Despite numerous chances playing 6-on-5 over the game’s final 90 seconds, the Penguins couldn’t get the equalizer.Malkin had three points after serving a one-game suspension for swinging his stick at Philadelphia’s Michael Raffl.“I think we fought hard,” Malkin said. “Just (wish) we would have played better 5-on-5.”Mike Smith made 34 saves to win for the first time since Jan. 13 for Calgary www.officialstarsproonline.com , which entered Saturday tied for the best record in the Western Conference.The Flames never trailed after Andrew Mangiapane opened the scoring 7:06 into the game.Sidney Crosby had a goal and two assists for the Penguins, who welcomed back defenseman Justin Schultz from a 53-game absence because of a fractured left leg. Schultz assisted on Jake Guentzel’s goal that tied the game at 1 late in the first period.But the Penguins allowed at least five goals for the seventh time over their past 17 games and are 7-9-1 in that stretch. They have dropped to the final playoff spot in the Eastern Conference. They entered Saturday one point clear of ninth-place Carolina.Malkin nearly pulled Pittsburgh back from a 5-2 deficit with goals at 5:42 and 14:41 of the third period. Each of those was assisted by Crosby, but Crosby could not convert two prime scoring chances in the final minute.“You know it’s coming, right?” Flames coach Bill Peters said of the Penguins’ late surge. “We made it a little harder than we would’ve liked by putting them on the power play.”Before he was relieved by Casey DeSmith for the start of the third period, the Penguins’ Matt Murray allowed five goals on 24 shots, though his performance was at least in part attributable to shoddy defense and bad luck.The puck on the goal credited to Mangiapane — the second of his career — hit at least three sticks after it was shot from the left point by Oliver Kylington.The goal that gave the Flames the lead for good 1:29 into the second period was a loose puck swatted in when no Penguins player picked up Frolik after Murray had stopped Matthew Tkachuk.Ninety-three seconds after that, Czarnik’s third of the season was a shot from the top of the left circle that deflected off the stick of a Penguins defender. And Hamonic’s goal from the right-wing boards with 3:58 left in the second hit Guentzel’s stick on the way in.Bennett’s goal 2½ minutes later gave Calgary five goals in a game for the 18th time this season. The Flames moved into second in the NHL in goals.“Obviously, there’s stuff you still want to clean up but everything’s moving back to where it was when we were buzzing,” Smith said. “That’s a good team there. … We wanted to finish this road trip off on a right note here and get two points tonight.”NOTES: Flames C Derek Ryan had three assists, the second three-point game among the 210 he’s played in the NHL. … Penguins RW Phil Kessel had two assists, the first of which (on Crosby’s goal) accounted for his 800th career point. Kessel is the 17th U.S.-born player to reach that milestone. … Crosby has eight points over his past four games.UP NEXTFlames: Calgary will return to the Scotiabank Saddledome for the first time in 11 days when it hosts the Arizona Coyotes on Monday.Penguins: The Penguins play home games on consecutive days for the second of three times all season, hosting the New York Rangers on Sunday.