NEWARK, N.J. — Reto Berra didn’t need to be spectacularly heroic Tuesday night, but that was part of the point.
The big Swiss goalie made 27 saves in the Avalanche’s 2-1 win over the New Jersey Devils as Colorado played a solid game in front of him at the Prudential Center.
Second-period goals from Matt Duchene and Tyson Barrie staked the Avalanche to a 2-0 lead, and Colorado held on.
“I felt really good from the first to the last second,” Berra said. “It was an important game for me personally. I wanted to regroup and play a really solid game after the last three losses I had.”
In the wake of Semyon Varlamov’s up-and-down — perhaps mostly down — play, Berra again is complicating coach Patrick Roy’s decision-making process.
“I love it,” Roy said. “That’s what we need. This is how we are going to have a chance to get back into the playoff race, and we need solid goaltending. We are aware of that. But we still have a lot of confidence in Varly, and I have confidence he will bounce back.”
As Berra alluded to, he seemed to come back to earth recently after a stingy stretch, allowing four goals in each of his previous three starts, including a one-period appearance against Washington before being yanked. But he was stingy again in New Jersey, and it came the night after Varlamov again had a lackluster game in a 5-3 loss at Brooklyn as the Avs opened a four-game road trip.
“I thought we played a good game, for a back-to-back (set against) a team that was waiting for us,” Roy said. “We had a good start, we played smart hockey, a sound game and I thought we were sharp in every area.”
Duchene, named Tuesday the NHL’s No. 3 star for November, opened the scoring at 2:10 of the second period, getting to an up-ice pass from Erik Johnson as New Jersey defenseman John Moore reacted indecisively.
Duchene snapped off a shot from the right circle that went off New Jersey goalie Cory Schneider and then over his shoulder. Berra got his first assist of the season on the play.
“It bit. It stuck,” Duchene said of the puck on Johnson’s pass. “It didn’t roll like it looked like it was going to. … The way it landed, it just stuck right there for me. It looked like it was going to be just a nothing play if it bounced to (Moore), but it was a good, little bounce and it came right to me. So I was able to get a shot off and fortunately beat him.”
It was 2-0 at 6:15, when the typically aggressive Barrie joined the rush, took a cross-slot pass from Jack Skille and scored.
The Avalanche wasted a chance to salt it away, failing to score with a 5-on-3 advantage for 96 seconds late in the second. Jordin Tootoo was called for high-sticking Nathan MacKinnon at 15:48, and then Travis Zajac went off for delay of game at 16:12 for shooting the puck over the glass.
But it stayed 2-0.
“When the puck was in our end, I almost called a timeout,” Roy said. “I almost wanted to keep those guys in and get that goal, but now with the rule that you can challenge a play, a goal, it always makes you a little nervous that you might need it to call back a goal. … When you don’t score 5-on-3, it’s always dangerous, yes.”
The Devils got within one goal when Kyle Palmeri’s shot slid off the leg of Avalanche defenseman Nate Guenin, slightly changing direction and getting past Berra at 2:09 of the third. Zajac had won the faceoff to Berra’s right to set up the shot.
This wasn’t a case of the Avalanche subjecting its goalie to a third-period onslaught when trying to hold the lead, since the Devils had nine shots in the final 20 minutes. And the Devils finished the night 0-for-2 on the power play, with Guenin, Nick Holden and Francois Beauchemin doing effective work among the defensemen.
Terry Frei: tfrei@denverpost.com or @tfrei
