When young Marc Crawford and his assistant, Joel Quenneville, coached the St. John’s Maple Leafs of the American Hockey League, they had a formidable home-ice advantage. Visiting teams came to Newfoundland Island, a.k.a. “The Rock,” stayed for back-to-back regular-season games at the harbor city of St. John’s and rarely were treated hospitably.
More than a decade later in the relaunched NHL, such back-to-back regular-season games in the same city are part of the attempt to highlight divisional rivalries and even create a pseudo-playoff atmosphere.
It worked in Denver over the past few days, when Crawford and the Vancouver Canucks could get only one of a possible four points in the two games against the Quenneville-coached Avalanche, which won Saturday night’s finale 4-3 at the Pepsi Center.
Alex Tanguay’s goal with 4:35 remaining in regulation pulled the Avalanche into a 3-3 tie, and then Ian Laperriere scored on a breakaway at 1:55 into overtime to win it.
Coming on the heels of Colorado’s 6-2 victory Thursday, the Avs pulled within five points of the Canucks in the Northwest Division.
“This was huge,” Laperriere said of the win, which came on a night when the Canucks’ Todd Bertuzzi again was relentlessly booed, but was the most effective player on the ice for much of the game. “If we lose this game,” added Laperriere, “the last one didn’t mean anything. We knew they would come harder, and they did, but we responded.”
On the game-winning goal, Laperriere took a pass from Patrice Brisebois and had the breakaway against Canucks goalie Alex Auld, who came in during the first period for an injured Dan Cloutier.
“I was kind of cheating a little bit,” Laperriere said. “I saw Patrice and (Steve) Konowalchuk working in the blue line there, and sometimes you take chances.
“I had a lot of time to think about what I had to do. I didn’t go too complicated. I went five-hole.”
The Canucks had taken a 3-2 lead on a goal by Henrik Sedin at 1:26 of the third period.
The Avalanche could have blown it open in the second period, when it had seven power plays, including two 5-on-3 advantages. But all Colorado could get during all that power-play time was Rob Blake’s first goal of the season, on the second of the two-man advantages. The Canucks had only three power plays all night, one in each period.
“I thought that anything they really got tonight was the result of some turnovers we made in some crucial areas,” Crawford said.
Cloutier was hurt on the first goal of the game, when Andrew Brunette scored for Colorado and slammed into the goalpost, and then Vancouver defenseman Nolan Baumgartner also ran into Cloutier.
“I banged my ear pretty hard off the post,” Brunette said. “My hand-eye coordination wasn’t as good as it should have been. I tried to grab the crossbar, but I missed it.”
Brunette went to the dressing room, but later returned. The woozy Cloutier was done for the night.
But Auld played well for the Canucks, only giving up the goal to Blake before Tanguay and Laperriere got the goals that gave Colorado the win.
Bertuzzi had an assist on the first of the Canucks’ goals against David Aebischer, carrying the puck from his own blue line, weaving through traffic and getting off a shot. Aebischer made the initial save, but Matt Cooke got to the rebound and put it past Aebischer.
Staff writer Terry Frei can be reached at 303-820-1895 or tfrei@denverpost.com.
