The Avalanche is only six games short of the halfway point of the 2009-10 season . . . and after hanging on for a 3-2 victory over the Calgary Flames on Sunday night at the Pepsi Center, Colorado had regained sole possession of first place in the Northwest Division.
No, the wheels haven’t fallen off.
As uncertain as the future is, each victory reinforces the argument that maybe — just maybe — this young team is for real. On Sunday, the Avalanche got goals from Wojtek Wolski, Chris Stewart and Darcy Tucker and survived getting only two shots in the third period to improve its record to 3-0 against the Flames.
“We’re 35 games into our schedule now, and we’re atop our division for a reason,” Colorado coach Joe Sacco said. “We work hard, we play with lots of energy in our game and the guys believe in the locker room. . . . There’s still a long way to go, but there’s no reason why we can’t stay there.”
Colorado has 44 points, the third-highest total in the Western Conference, one point behind surprising Los Angeles and San Jose. The catch in the division race is that Calgary has three games in hand on the Avalanche.
Playing without the injured Milan Hejduk (knee) and Marek Svatos (groin), the Avalanche took a 3-1 lead into the third period, and in the repeat of a recent pattern was outshot in the final 20 minutes. This time, it wasn’t a barrage, but the Flames had a 7-2 edge in shots in the period, leaving Colorado with a 35-21 advantage for the game. Any way you crunch the numbers, it meant the Avs were in danger of blowing the lead.
Part of that could be attributed to the three Calgary power plays in the period, and the Flames converted only once — getting Mark Giordano’s goal at 13:16 — on a night when the Avalanche penalty killing was effective, largely because of the strong work from rookie center Ryan O’Reilly. (The Avalanche had five power plays in the first period alone before the pendulum inevitably swung.)
“When you do take three penalties, you’re going to be caught in your end, just like they were in the first period,” Sacco said. “I thought we still had lots of energy.”
Wolski’s goal came on a 5-on-3 in the first period, and Stewart and Paul Stastny worked a nifty passing exchange in front before Stewart got the puck past Miikka Kiprusoff to make it 2-0 at 9:17 of the second. After the Flames’ Rene Bourque beat Craig Anderson from the right circle to make it 3-2 at 10:34 of the second, Tucker got what turned out to be the game-winner at 17:19 of the period.
“The puck hit my foot and went up in the air,” Tucker said. “I missed it the first time, but I got it the second time.”
Tucker said of the third period: “We sat back on our heels a little, which sometimes has been a tendency of ours, and it cost us a little bit. But we were able to hold the fort with Andy’s stellar play and our defense, plus we killed some big penalties in the third.”
In his second game back after missing four games with a neck injury, Anderson made some key saves, including one of the snow-angel variety on Jarome Iginla in the third period.
“We played really well,” Anderson said. “We took it to them. We knew they’d be coming, but for the most part, we did a really good job of playing good defensive hockey.”
Terry Frei: 303-954-1895 or tfrei@denverpost.com
