Anaheim, Calif. – Rookie Marek Svatos scored his 10th goal and fifth winner with 5:58 remaining, Alex Tanguay had three assists, and the Colorado Avalanche beat Anaheim 3-2 on Friday night to send the Mighty Ducks to their seventh straight loss.
Jonathan Hedstrom scored an unassisted goal, and Teemu Selanne connected on a power play in the third period for the Ducks, whose losing streak is their longest since a seven-game skid in March 1998. A home loss Sunday against Vancouver would tie the franchise record set in October 1996.
The Ducks have outshot opponents 192-139 the last five games while scoring only nine goals, and Anaheim is only 3-for-38 on the power play in their last six.
Milan Hejduk and Steve Konowalchuk also scored for the Avalanche, and Joe Sakic had two assists in a matchup of rookie goaltenders.
Peter Budaj, starting consecutive games for the first time in the NHL, made 31 saves after stopping 21 shots in Wednesday’s 3-1 victory at Phoenix. David Aebischer allowed eight goals on 30 shots in his previous two starts following the goalie’s seven-game winning streak.
Ilya Bryzgalov made 28 saves for Anaheim as Jean-Sebastien Giguere missed his second straight game because of a hamstring strain.
Colorado’s top line of Hejduk, Tanguay and Sakic, which accounted for five goals in the previous six games, opened the scoring at 13:53. Sakic and Tanguay made two precise passes in tight quarters to set up Hejduk, who tapped the puck into a wide-open net to end an eight-game goal drought.
Anaheim tied it about 3 1/2 minutes later after a sloppy turnover by Colorado defenseman John-Michael Liles, who put the puck right onto Hedstrom’s stick on an attempted clearing pass in the Avalanche zone. Liles couldn’t recover in time to prevent the Ducks’ rookie from beating Budaj between the pads for his fifth goal.
Brett Clark had a chance to put Colorado back in front, but missed the net completely on a penalty shot after getting tripped from behind by Scott Niedermayer on a breakaway at 9:35 of the second.
Konowalchuk and Selanne traded power-play goals about two minutes apart in the third period, with Selanne capitalizing on a holding penalty against Konowalchuk to tie it 2-2 about four minutes into the frame.
