The Avalanche learned two things about the Mighty Ducks of Anaheim in Game 3 on Tuesday night:
Goalie Ilya Bryzgalov is human.
Right wing Joffrey Lupul has a wicked wrist shot and wasn’t content with just a hat trick.
Bryzgalov’s shutout streak ended at 249 minutes, 15 seconds – No. 2 all-time in the NHL playoffs – but the three goals he allowed were adequately offset by Lupul’s four tallies, the latter in overtime to give the Ducks a 4-3 victory and commanding 3-0 lead in the best-of-seven series.
“Best game I’ve ever played – by far,” Lupul said in an ecstatic visitors’ locker room at the Pepsi Center.
The soft-spoken Bryzgalov had the same demeanor he had after producing shutouts in Game 1 and Game 2. He said he wasn’t thinking about his shutout streak, which ended about 20 minutes shy of the record set by Montreal’s George Hainsworth in 1930.
“Everybody asked me about (the streak), but I never think about it,” said the Russian. “I come on the ice and just try to win the game.”
Lupul, 23, is playing in his second season and first playoffs. He fired a team-high six shots on goalie Jose Theodore, and his marksmanship helped him produce a rating of plus-3 and his first four-goal outburst since his junior days in Canada.
“It seemed every time I touched it, something good happened,” said Lupul, the first player to score four goals in one playoff game since Calgary’s Theo Fleury in 1995. “The overtime goal, I was actually shooting it five-hole, but I don’t know if it caught a defenseman’s stick or his foot, but it went in five-hole. Sometimes you get those breaks.”
His second and third goals were goal-scorer’s tallies, both well-placed wrist shots into the corner of the net from between the circles. Center Dustin Penner assisted on three of them, including the winner.
On that play, Penner intercepted a Patrice Brisebois clearing pass and made a drop pass to Lupul, who skated between the circles with speed after seeing the turnover.
“I was yelling for it, and I think he was looking for me today,” Lupul said. “He did a good job passing.”
Mike Chambers can be reached at 303-820-5453 or mchambers@denverpost.com.
