Anaheim, Calif. – For a while at the Arrowhead Pond on Wednesday night, it seemed the Avalanche was going to sweep its two-game trip to Southern California and that Colorado general manager Pierre Lacroix might be excused for seeing if he could schedule a game against the Lakers, too.
After all, Kobe Bryant probably wouldn’t pass much on skates, either.
But after the Avs took a 3-0 lead over the Mighty Ducks of Anaheim, they suffered a 5-4 loss in overtime when Anaheim’s Jonathan Hedstrom was tripped from behind by Brett McLean, awarded a penalty shot and beat Peter Budaj with 1:38 showing on the clock.
The silver lining was that the point for the overtime loss got the Avalanche within one point of first-place Calgary Flames in the Northwest Division and kept Colorado in the No. 5 spot in the Western Conference, one point ahead of the surging Ducks.
“We’ll take a point, but certainly it’s tough, too, when we give it to a team we’re right with,” Colorado coach Joel Quenneville said. “It was a vital swing of three points. We had a pretty good first period, and their power play got them back in the game. I think (the) second and third goals for them were huge.
“And then in overtime, we had a great chance right before (Hedstrom’s penalty shot), with Milan (Hejduk), and they came back and ended it.”
Scott Niedermayer, the Norris Trophy winner as the NHL’s best defenseman two years ago who signed with the Ducks over the summer to join his brother, Rob, with the Ducks, had two of the Anaheim power-play goals.
Niedermayer said after the horrible start, the Ducks “weren’t too concerned about the outcome of the game. The most important thing for us after that was to continue and try to fight back and play like we had the last little while and not let it get away. We were able to that, and we got rewarded for it. It doesn’t happen all the time, but it was important that we got back to doing what we needed to do.”
Colorado took the three-goal lead in the first 10:36 and managed to chase Anaheim’s standout goalie, Jean-Sebastien Giguere.
Joe Sakic, McLean and Antti Laaksonen all scored to make it 3-0. Sakic’s shot beat Giguere from the top of the right-wing circle on a power play to open the scoring.
Ryan Getzlaf’s drive from the blue line got through traffic to beat Budaj and make it 3-1 at 15:21 of the first. But the Colorado lead was three again after Rob Blake – who had three assists for the night – fed Pierre Turgeon coming out of the penalty box for a breakaway, and Turgeon beat Giguere’s backup, Ilja Bryzgalov, at 3:54 of the second period.
After Niedermayer’s two goals, the Ducks tied it up when Andy McDonald, one of the more underhyped players in the league, completed a nifty tac-tac-toe passing play by the Ducks for his 26th goal of the season at 7:03 of the third period.
Quenneville said it wasn’t a case of the Avalanche running out of gas.
“I think the pace of that game was probably as high-end as we’ve seen all year,” he said. “It was a very intense, very competitive game.”
Three weeks ago, the Avalanche was in fifth place in the conference, heading into a stretch during which it would play nine of the next 10 on the road. Only a Saturday game at St. Louis remains in the road-heavy period, and the Avalanche hasn’t fallen apart and out of a playoff spot.
Staff writer Terry Frei can be reached at 303-820-1895 or tfrei@denverpost.com.
