 |
| |
|
 |
 |
||
 |
 |
||
 |
|||
EVENTS
CNNSI.com GROUP
COMMERCE
|
 |
DENVER (Ticker) -- It has not been an easy postseason for the Colorado Avalanche, and this one was no different. Ray Bourque began a pivotal sequence with a miraculous stop and the Avalanche defeated the Los Angeles Kings, 2-0, to even their Western Conference semifinal series at one win apiece. Patrick Roy set an NHL record with his 16th career playoff shutout, but Bourque made the biggest save of the game early in the second period. Glen Murray broke in alone and put a shot off Roy's left arm and over the fallen goaltender. But Bourque reached behind Roy from the left of the net and batted the puck out of mid-air to keep the game scoreless. "It looked like it might have been in from the side, but obviously, it wasn't," Murray said. On the ensuing rush, rookie Ville Nieminen stuffed a rebound of his own shot past a sprawled Felix Potvin on the power play 2:29 into the second. Because play never stopped after Murray's near-goal, officials immediately went to a video review that lasted several moments. "It wasn't conclusive, I guess," Murray said. "That's what the guys said in the dressing room. They had all the cameras up there, so if it's not a goal, it's not a goal." "It was a huge momentum swing. If their goal counts and ours doesn't and they are up 1-0," Bourque said. Joe Sakic beat Potvin on a breakaway with 4:47 to play, sealing another tight win. Despite playing the two lowest seeds in the West, the top-seeded Avalanche have posted three one-goal victories. They lost Thursday night's series opener, 4-3, in overtime. "We know we haven't been playing our best," defenseman Adam Foote said. "But we've been a focused team and kept our composure." Mediocre in Thursday's overtime loss, Roy stopped 20 shots and broke a tie with Clint Benedict for the postseason shutout mark. "Yesterday, I talked to a lot of good people around me," he said. "They all mentioned the same thing to me, that I always thought about, to go back to basics and just make one save at a time. "I thought maybe because I was so hard on myself that I started to lose a bit of confidence in myself, and that is sometimes the worst thing I could do." Potvin made 26 saves for Los Angeles, which still stole home-ice advantage. The seventh seed hosts Game Three on Monday. "We know the Avalanche very well," Kings coach Andy Murray said. "They have a great team and play very hard. To beat them, you have to have everyone playing well. And right now, we don't have everyone playing well." The Kings seldomly tested Roy, even with a 13-second two-man advantage midway through the first period. They ended up 0-for-4 on the power play. Colorado was not much better, going 1-for-6. Its only goal came moments after Bourque stopped Los Angeles from scoring shorthanded. Peter Forsberg set up Nieminen for the only goal the Avalanche needed, working past a defender in the right faceoff circle before shoving the puck to the right of the net. Colorado failed to score on a 58-second two-man power play late in the second period and entered the intermission with a 1-0 lead. Adam Deadmarsh nearly tied it against his former team but had a shot sail just wide of the goalpost with 7:15 left. About 2 1/2 minutes later, Sakic skated in alone on Potvin and put a snap shot past his glove for some insurance. It was his fifth playoff goal. "Definitely, you want an insurance goal like that," Sakic said. "It makes it a whole lot different in philosophies when you are up by two instead of one." |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
