Pierre Turgeon moved to within one goal of 500 for his career, and Milan Hejduk got to the 200 mark in the Avalanche’s 6-2 victory against Vancouver on Thursday night.
“Yes, it’s a big achievement and I do think about it, but you want to make sure it’s all about winning and the goals will come,” Turgeon said.
Hejduk’s goal at 11 minutes, 47 seconds of the second period gave Colorado a 5-1 lead. It took a couple of extra minutes to become official, as his shot originally was ruled as hitting the crossbar before video review confirmed it hit the back of the net.
“It’s a good number, and hopefully I’m not going to stop there,” Hejduk said.
Turgeon got his 498th and 499th goals in the second period. The first was a wrist shot to the far post that drove Canucks goalie Dan Cloutier from the game at 3:44. The second came in the waning seconds of a 5-on-3 Avalanche power-play advantage. He banked in a shot off the leg of substitute goalie Alexander Auld.
“I was trying to do that,” Turgeon said. “I saw the goalie trying to get back into position. When I saw that, I just tried to bank it.”
Turgeon moved past Glenn Anderson into 34th place on the all-time NHL goal-scoring list with his second goal.
Footnotes
Bob Boughner and Kurt Sauer were the healthy scratches for Colorado. Right wing Dan Hinote missed another game with back spasms, but coach Joel Quenneville said he might return to practice today. …
Said Vancouver’s Markus Naslund of the game and the booing of teammate Todd Bertuzzi: “That wasn’t the reason we played terrible. I don’t really have an answer why we came out like that. We have a chance to rebound (Saturday).” …
Alex Tanguay extended his point streak to eight games (two goals, eight assists).
