In another hockey era, the Flames and Avalanche would have been scrambling to get to Union Station on Sunday afternoon.
On the overnight train ride to Calgary, the teams would have had beer and cigars – maybe even together – and possibly a fight or two in the dining car. And they even would have had time to fill out their NCAA pool brackets, with the eventual winner perhaps picking the Catholic schools in the order in which the saints were beatified.
Instead, after the Avalanche rode Peter Budaj’s 33 saves and first career shutout to beat the Flames 3-0 on Sunday afternoon at the Pepsi Center and took over first place in the Northwest Division, the rivals were in a rush to get through a snowstorm to the airport and catch their chartered flights to Alberta.
In the second half of the back-to- back, barn-and-barn set, the Flames and Avalanche meet again tonight at the Saddledome, this time with Colorado attempting to hold onto the division’s top spot – which is especially significant because it would guarantee at least the Western Conference’s No. 3 playoff seed and a home-ice advantage in the first round.
“I think we’ve had seven or eight games all year long that were for first place,” Avalanche coach Joel Quenneville said. “This is the first time that at the end of the day, we achieved it.”
This time, the Avs wound up in first – at least temporarily and with the significant catch that they have played three more games than the Flames – in part because Budaj responded well in his first home game as Colorado’s interim No. 1 goalie, after the trade that sent David Aebischer to Montreal for the injured Jose Theodore. The Avalanche is 37-23-1-5 for 80 points, and the Flames (36-20-2-5) are a point back.
“It’s always nice for a goaltender when he gets a shutout,” said Budaj, a 23-year-old Slovak. “More important, we got the two points against one of the best teams in the league. Before this game, they were ahead of us. Now, we’re ahead of them. This was a very, very big game for us and right now we have to keep going and build on this win.”
Also, Joe Sakic and Alex Tanguay took turns setting up each other for the Avalanche’s first two goals against Miikka Kiprusoff, and Milan Hejduk finished off the scoring with a short-handed goal at 16:18 of the second period.
Sakic’s assist enabled him to become the 16th player to reach 900 career assists, and he is within one of former Avalanche assistant coach Bryan Trottier, who is No. 15.
“It’s only one win,” Sakic said. “We know that to maintain first, we have to win (at Calgary).”
Hejduk again was with Dan Hinote in the Avalanche’s second-wave penalty-killing unit, and also ended up with nine shots on Kiprusoff. Hejduk’s short-handed goal came with Brett Clark off for hooking, and he converted on a 2-on-1 with Hinote to make it 3-0.
“I probably should have ended up with more goals than one,” Hejduk said. “Kiprusoff made some good saves. I tried to get some pucks on the net.”
The two-game set, said Hejduk, “is kind of a measuring stick for us.”
Terry Frei can be reached at 303-820-1895 or tfrei@denverpost.com.
