CALGARY, Alberta — When the Avalanche fell behind 2-0 to the Calgary Flames in the first 70 seconds Wednesday night at the Saddledome, it again seemed entirely possible that Colorado — and workhorse goalie Craig Anderson — finally was experiencing one of those games best quickly written off and forgotten.
The temptation could have been to play it out and get out of Dodge . . . or Calgary. Although few admit it publicly, it occurs in every sport, especially over the course of marathon seasons.
It didn’t happen Wednesday, when the Avalanche stormed back to take a 3-2 victory over the Flames, getting first-period goals from David Koci and David Jones and then ultimately taking the lead at 5:31 of the third period on a terrific individual effort by Wojtek Wolski.
The Avalanche winger split Flames forwards Daymond Langkow and Nigel Dawes, then — without a Calgary defenseman challenging him — patiently waited and ultimately beat Flames goalie Miikka Kiprusoff high to the stick side.
“I got the puck on the boards and there were two guys coming at me,” said Wol-ski, who has a team-high eight goals. “I just tried to make sure I could fit in without coughing up the puck. I saw the open lane, and my first thought was that I saw (Paul Stastny) on the side, but then I said: ‘I gotta shoot here. I have an open opportunity.’ As soon as I saw the goalie push out toward me, I thought if I faked, maybe I could get a little bit of opening if I went to the forehand. And it worked out.”
Avs coach Joe Sacco called the game-winner “a very skilled goal. It was a highlight goal, an individual effort, and he showed a lot of poise with the puck. That’s what he can do. He played well again tonight. He played hard, he did a good job on the penalty kill, and that’s what we expect of him.”
Wolski’s goal put Colorado up 3-2, and Anderson again proved his resiliency, finishing with 30 saves as the surprising Avalanche won in Alberta for the second night in a row after opening the trip with a 3-0 win at Edmonton, and improved to 10-1-2 for the season. The Avs got their three goals on only 14 shots on Kiprusoff.
The Avs’ first 13 games include somewhat similar comeback victories over Detroit and Carolina, and the only regulation loss was 3-2 at Nashville, so that one-of-those-nights game has yet to occur. The record is the best after 13 games in the history of the franchise. The 2000-01 Avalanche, which won both the Presidents Trophy and Stanley Cup, was 9-2-2-0 after 13 games.
“It could have been easy for our guys to say: ‘You know what? We’ll get ’em next time; we’ve got San Jose coming up in a couple of nights,’ ” Sacco said. “But that’s not the way we are. We’re resilient, we find ways to win sometimes when it’s not pretty. . . . There are a couple of things. You get good goaltending but, two, there’s no quit in the room.”
Terry Frei: 303-954-1895 or tfrei@denverpost.com
