DENVER — Nazem Kadri must have seen enough. The Colorado Avalanche forward took over the second half of the third period Thursday with a hand in all three scoring plays.

The Avalanche won consecutive games against the same opponent for the first time this season with a 3-0 decision against the San Jose Sharks.

It was a tight, scoreless game for the majority. The Avalanche averaged somewhere in the neighborhood of two goalpost strikes per period and power-play chances that fell in the first seven games went wide or hopped over sticks.

“I thought it was a character win,” Brandon Saad said. “Sometimes we’re going to have games like that.

“We’re not going to win every game by seven goals.”

Saad, Kadri and Joonas Donskoi poked at the puck in the crease and Kadri finally beat Devan Dubnyk (35 saves) with just over 10 minutes left in the game.

Kadri’s only goal of the season up to that point was one of the eight against St. Louis on Jan. 15. He’d been held to an assist through five games.

He set up another for good measure 1:58 later. Kadri came over the blue line and waited for Andre Burakovsky to get to the net. He put it right on Burakovsky’s stick for a chip-in.

The Sharks took a late penalty and Kadri deflected in a long shot from Cale Makar eight seconds in.

Philipp Grubauer made 21 saves in his second shutout of the season.

In the first period, the Sharks’ Ryan Donato slid into Pierre-Edouard Bellemare, knocking his legs out from under him. Bellemare writhed on the ice behind the play and had to be helped off, putting no weight on his left skate. Coach Jared Bednar didn’t have an update after the game and expected he’d be evaluated soon.

Matt Calvert is already missing from that line as he deals with concussion issues.

Bednar said he didn’t sense frustration in the locker room after two scoreless periods. The Avalanche then went out and put 20 more shots on net.

“That’s what teams are going to try and do to us — lock it down,” Kadri said.

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