The Avalanche got its first home victory in nearly 18 months Monday night.
Not since April 28, 2004, when Joe Sakic scored in overtime to beat the San Jose Sharks in Game 4 of a playoff series, had the Avs won in front of the standard 18,007 Pepsi Center fans.
The Avs didn’t need overtime this time. Unleashing a barrage on Calgary Flames goalie Miikka Kiprusoff, Colorado blew out the defending Western Conference champions 7-3 before a record 440th consecutive home sellout.
Rookie Marek Svatos had plenty of new headgear with which to brave the winter weather, scoring his first career hat trick. Rookie Wojtek Wolski scored his first career goal to aid goalie David Aebischer.
“You never forget your first goal or your first hat trick,” said Avalanche captain Joe Sakic, who got his first “hatty” against Hall of Famer Billy Smith. “(Svatos) obviously had a great game tonight, and we played well against a good team.”
Svatos, who has four goals in his first two games after missing the season opener, also assisted on Wolski’s goal, which gave Colorado a 1-0 lead at 4 minutes, 2 seconds of the first period.
“It’s a good feeling,” Svatos said. “Tonight, the puck just seemed to bounce my way. We put a lot of pucks on net and got some luck.”
The Avs’ Brett McLean staked them to a 2-0 lead after the first period. The lead was 5-0 by the 16:45 mark of the second period after back-to-back Svatos goals and one by Antti Laaksonen.
After Calgary scored to end Aebischer’s shutout, Avs defenseman Patrice Brisebois made it 6-1 with his second goal of the season.
The Avs outshot Calgary 41-33 and went 3-for-8 on the power play.
“It was one of those nights when the puck went in for us,” Avalanche coach Joel Quenneville said. “You usually don’t get nights like that. It was one of those scheduled games where we had an edge going into it (with Calgary at the end of a four-game road trip), and we took advantage of it.”
The Flames (1-3) have allowed 11 power-play goals in their first four games. The new rules to aid offense haven’t benefited Kiprusoff, who was one of the league’s top goalies in 2003-04.
“Every part of our game, we need to break down,” Flames star Jarome Iginla said. “We have to turn it around.”
Said Flames coach Darryl Sutter: “We are being totally dominated in our own end. Hopefully, it’s good for our team to be totally dominated by two teams that are clearly better than us on back-to-back nights.”
Sakic, who got an assist on Brisebois’ power-play goal, called it a “special night,” and not just because his team won big. The arena was packed and loud throughout. So much for an initial dropoff in fan attendance after the lockout, a la Major League Baseball after a work stoppage in 1995.
“The fans have always been great here, and we knew that wouldn’t change,” Sakic said. “It was a great atmosphere out there. Obviously, they had some stuff to cheer about tonight.”
The Avs have yet to lose a home opener at the Pepsi Center (5-0-1) and are 19-4-3 overall in home openers – 7-1-2 since moving to Denver.
“Everybody was complaining after our first game about offense, so it was nice to put up seven tonight,” veteran Ian Laperriere said. “It was a fun night, but just like our first loss of the year, we have to put this behind us and move on to the next one.”
It’s in the Can
The Avalanche remained undefeated (5-0-1) in its home openers at the Pepsi Center with a 7-3 victory against Calgary on Monday. A look:
Date Score
Oct. 13, 1999 Avs 2, Boston 1
Oct. 14, 2000 Avs 3, Columbus 1
Oct. 9, 2001 Avs 5, Vancouver 4
Oct. 9, 2002 Avs 1, Dallas 1
Oct. 10, 2003 Avs 5, Chicago 0
Oct. 10, 2005 Avs 7, Calgary 3
Staff writer Adrian Dater can be reached at 303-820-5454 or adater@denverpost.com.
