Save for the first five-plus minutes, the Avalanche on Saturday night was again dominant for the second consecutive game at Ball Arena.

The San Jose Sharks produced the first eight shots and gained the early lead just 3:17 in before Colorado found its rhythm and put four consecutive shots behind goalie Adin Hill.

The result was a 6-2 Avalanche victory, much like Thursday's 7-1 rout over the Vancouver Canucks, and capped an impressive sweep of the two-game homestand.

"Sometimes you're playing great and feel like you can't win. And sometimes it's the opposite," said Avs center Nazem Kadri, who had a goal and two assists to take over the team scoring lead. "We've been great on the defensive side of the puck lately and I think that's opened up some offensive opportunities. That's the recipe and that's what we're going to need moving forward."

The Avs, who were without injured top-line center Nathan MacKinnon for the second straight game, also got a multiple-point performance from defenseman Sam Girard (three assists, empty-net goal). They also scored in all three situations — even strength, the power play, and penalty kill — and goalie Darcy Kuemper made 28 saves to improve to 6-4.

"We knew we had a slow start. I felt like the power play gave us some life a little bit, a big goal as well," Girard said. "So I think right after that, we were going pretty good. Pucks deep. Good offense. The last two games we've been good defensively as well. We were good tonight defensively and offensively."

In addition to Kadri, defenseman Devon Toews (power play), rookie forward Alex Newhook, and versatile right winger Logan O'Connor (shorthanded) also scored.

O'Connor immediately stepped in to play on the top line after J.T. Compher left with an upper-body injury early in the second period, before Andre Burakovsky played that role in the third and made it 5-2 just 1:11 after San Jose got within 4-2 midway through the final frame.

Girard completed his four-point night with an empty-net goal.

The Avs (6-5-1) have points in five of their last six games. But it didn't appear they would get any early against the Sharks, who scored on their fifth shot and led 1-0 before the Avs finally produced a shot 5:54 into the game.

"Slow start and then we started to come," Avs coach Jared Bednar said. "Guys were recognizing it on the bench. We were standing around, really, uninvolved, and we got back on our game pretty quickly."

Colorado scored four straight goals to take a 4-1 lead into the third period. Toews tied it 1-1 with a power-play goal at 10:10 of the first period and Kadri capped an excellent passing play by Jack Johnson and Valeri Nichushkin to give the Avs a 2-1 lead just 3:45 later.

Kadri also assisted on Toews' goal to extend his points streak to six-straight games, a stretch where he has three goals and seven assists.

The Avs scored two more goals in less than four minutes midway through the second period. Newhook struck at 12:38 and Logan O'Connor at 15:33. Newhook capped a great behind-the-net feed from Girard for his first NHL regular-season goal (he scored once in the playoffs last season) and O'Connor made it 4-1 with a shorthanded breakaway.

Footnotes. Avs rookie defenseman Bo Byram was scratched with a head injury, stemming from being elbowed to the face by Vancouver's Bo Horvat in Thursday's 7-1 win over the Canucks. Byram, who was limited to just 19 games last season because of multiple concussions, was feeling good Friday and completed a full practice. But Bednar said he wasn't feeling well Saturday morning. Byram entered Saturday tied for third in NHL rookie scoring, with eight points (three goals) in 11 games. … Colorado claimed forward Nicolas Aube-Kubel off waivers from the Philadelphia Flyers on Saturday. The 25-year-old played in 102 NHL games with the Flyers, including seven this season. He appeared in a career-high 50 games last season, producing three goals and 12 points. The Canadian from Alberta was a second-round draft pick (48th overall) by the Flyers in 2014. Aube-Kubel is in the final year of a contract with the $1.075 million annual cap hit. He is a pending restricted free agent next summer.