It was the first time Avalanche fans have booed after a goal by Joe Sakic. Only Vancouver’s Todd Bertuzzi could have made that happen.
When Sakic opened the scoring spigots for the Avs Thursday night at 2 minutes, 37 seconds of the first period in Colorado’s 6-2 victory, the loudest boos ever heard in the Pepsi Center rained down.
That was the moment Bertuzzi skated onto Denver ice since his attack on former Av Steve Moore. The booing was long, loud and didn’t let up all night, each time Bertuzzi took a shift.
“It is what it is,” Bertuzzi said, reacting to the boos. When another reporter asked, “What does that mean?” Bertuzzi said: “Read into it. You’re pretty intelligent. What am I going to do about it?”
Otherwise, it was a night of cheers for the partisans. The game was free of incidents toward Bertuzzi, although a television camera showed a woman wearing a No. 44 Bertuzzi jersey getting beer poured over her head by an unidentified man in the concourse.
The Avs beat Vancouver in every phase of the game. Bertuzzi, who seemed tentative much of the game, was a minus-3 after two periods, although he did have an assist on Vancouver’s second goal and had four shots on net in a third period in which the Canucks outshot the Avs a whopping 23-0. It was only the second time in franchise history the Avs failed to get a shot in a period.
The first two periods were a different story, as the Avs outshot Vancouver 30-19 and gained a 6-1 lead. Pierre Turgeon scored two goals, with Sakic, Steve Konowalchuk, Ian Laperriere and Milan Hejduk getting the others. Andrew Brunette had three assists.
“We came out with a lot of jump tonight,” Sakic said. “We sat back a little too much in the third, but we played well the first two periods, especially the second.”
Indeed, it was probably the best period of the season for Colorado. The Avs outshot the Canucks 13-5, adding to a 3-1 lead built on goals by Sakic, Konowalchuk and Laperriere. Turgeon scored two of the three in the period, including a wrist shot to the far post at 3:44 that sent Vancouver goalie Dan Cloutier off the ice. Turgeon banked in a shot from behind the net off substitute goalie Alexander Auld to make it 6-1 at 14:02.
“It’s nice to win at home like tonight against them,” Turgeon said. “They’re still up on us in the division, so it was a big game. All these games against teams in our division are right now, and we’ve got another tough one with them Saturday night.”
Avs left wing Brad May engaged in some rough stuff, nearly fighting with Wade Brookbank and elbowing Matt Cooke in the mouth. May and Bertuzzi did not engage in any confrontations, although Avs defenseman Rob Blake drilled Bertuzzi into the boards.
In many ways, the crowd was a bigger story than anything that happened on the ice.
“These are the greatest fans in the NHL,” said Avs defenseman John-Michael Liles, who had two assists. “I think everyone was kind of prepared for it. You don’t pay attention to it, but you could definitely hear it tonight.”
Said May: “There was a lot of emotion. That’s probably one of the greatest things that we can do, is play in front of full crowds. I love how we responded. We did the things we had to do. Clearly, we played a different team than the one we played last Saturday in Vancouver.”
Staff writer Adrian Dater can be reached at 303-820-5454 or adater@denverpost.com.
