Extended power play helps Avs top Stars

Sunday, October 09, 2005

Playing the final 6:48 of the game on a power play, the Colorado Avalanche took advantage. Marek Svatos scored off a rebound with 1:57 left in the game to give the Avalanche a 3-2 win over the Dallas Stars at the American Airlines Center Saturday night.

The extended power play came after Colorado's Dan Hinote hit Stars center Jason Arnott along the boards in the neutral zone. After Stars forward Bill Guerin went after Hinote, Arnott, who had been bloodied by the hit, went after Hinote as well and started throwing punches.

When the dust settled, Arnott, who suffered a nasty cut from when his head hit the glass, picked up an instigator, a five-minute fighting major and a game misconduct. The instigator and fighting major ended up putting Colorado on a power play for the rest of the game.

A power play they used to win the game. It was a situation the Stars coaching staff said was unnecessary.

"That was a discipline problem," Stars assistant coach Mark Lamb said on WBAP radio after the game. "You have to take that hit and then you go and make the play. He took the hit and he hit his head on the side of the glass. He thought he got hit a little bit dirty. He saw the blood and he just snapped.

"In a situation like that you've got to play for the team and you can't play for yourself. It was just an unfortunate incident for Arnie that he just kind of lost it, and it ended up costing us the game."

Arnott offered this explanation.

"The hit felt like it was high, up against my head. That's why my head went in and that's why I kind of lost my cool. I can't take it back now," said Arnott. "I didn't think I would get all the penalties, but I felt pretty bad about it. Going into a tie game, to put my team that much behind sucked."

And there was this from Hinote: "I made the hit, turned around and it was chaos. I still don't know what happened."

Stars goalie Marty Turco came up with several big stops including ones on Steve Konowalchuk, Alex Tanguay, John-Michael Liles, Tanguay again and Pierre Turgeon during the extended power play.

But the Avalanche finally got the game-winner at 18:03 of the third when Turgeon put a puck on net and Svatos scored off the rebound to give Colorado the 3-2 win.

Turgeon also had a goal in the game for Colorado, which evened its record at 1-1-0. Jere Lehtinen and Brenden Morrow scored for the Stars, who dropped to 1-1-0 on the season. 

The first period was a tight checking affair with very few chances. The Stars outshot Colorado 6-4 and it took the Avs almost eleven minutes to get their first shot on goal.

Colorado came the closest to scoring when Joe Sakic's wrist shot from the high slot late in the period hit teammate Rob Blake's stick and bounced off the crossbar during a power play chance.

The Avs got a power play chance early in the second, but it was the Stars who cashed in with a shorthanded goal. Lehtinen crossed the Colorado blue line and put a bouncing puck on net that beat Avs goalie Peter Budaj at the 52 second mark.

Colorado got another power play chance a short time later, but Turco came up with a couple of good stops to keep Colorado off the board. Turco made another nice pad stop on Sakic right after Dallas failed to scored with 1:07 of five-on-three power play time.

Colorado pulled even with a power play goal at 12:34 of the second period when Liles fed a pass across the the top of the crease to Turgeon, who knocked the puck into the open side of the net.

Turco came up with another big save when he made a nice sliding stop on Antti Laaksonen during a two-on-one Avalanche shorthanded breakaway.

Colorado took the lead 27 seconds left in the second period on a Sakic goal. After Guerin turned the puck over in the neutral zone, the Avs busted into the Dallas zone and Sakic beat Turco with a wrist shot from the top of the left faceoff circle.

The Stars got the tying goal at 11:43 of the third period when Guerin centered the puck to the front of the net and it appeared Colorado defenseman Rob Blake accidentally knocked it into the net. Morrow was credited with the goal.

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