Cody McCormick sported a gap-toothed grin Tuesday night.
The Avalanche rookie, a native of London, Ontario, scored the game-winning goal against his favorite team growing up, the Toronto Maple Leafs.
And not many players do what McCormick did to get the goal: He beat Ed Belfour through the 5-hole from the short side and looked off Joe Sakic before shooting.
Coming down the right side on a 2-on-1 break with Sakic, McCormick eschewed a pass to the Avs’ all-time leading scorer and let rip a shot that beat future Hall of Famer Belfour.
“I would have liked to have passed it over,” McCormick said, “but it’s just not in the toolbox. I’ll take the goal any day.”
McCormick said he would call his father, a big Leafs fan, after the game, maybe to rub it in a little.
“It’s good to score against Toronto,” McCormick said with a devilish grin. “I just tried to throw it on his pads, maybe get a rebound to Joe. Maybe he wasn’t expecting me to shoot it.”
First to 100
Milan Hejduk is the Pepsi Center king.
Or at least he was the first player to score 100 goals at the seven-year-old arena. The Avalanche right wing’s two quick goals in the second period got him to the century mark before anybody.
Hejduk has 100 goals in 215 games at the Pepsi Center.
Footnotes
David Aebischer’s seven-game winning streak matches his career best, also set this season. … Marek Svatos scored his 27th goal, equaling the third-highest total by a rookie in franchise history. He is tied with Andrei Kovalenko and behind brothers Peter and Anton Stastny, who each had 39 in 1980-81. … Alex Tanguay had his 249th career assist, passing Valeri Kamensky (248) for seventh on the franchise list.
