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Colorado 1, San Jose 0

Posted: Thursday May 16, 2002 03:38 AM

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DENVER (Ticker) -- Game Seven brings out the best in Patrick Roy and the Colorado Avalanche.

Roy recorded his second straight Game Seven shutout and Peter Forsberg scored late in the second period as the Avalanche returned to the Western Conference finals with a 1-0 victory over the San Jose Sharks.

No active goaltender has played more seventh games than Roy, who improved to 6-5 with blankings of Los Angeles in the conference quarterfinals and San Jose. After a 5-3 loss in Game Five of this best-of-seven series, Roy yielded just one goal and ended it with a shutout streak of 107 minutes, 30 seconds.

"You feel (the pressure), but you have to remain focused," said Roy, who made 27 saves. "The last two games, I had very good focus out there and I loved the way I played."

But this win, which set up a meeting with the archrival Detroit Red Wings, did not come without its anxious moments. None was scarier for Roy than the one that occurred just 4 1/2 minutes into the first period.

Roy tried unsuccessfully to smother a loose puck outside the left goalpost and was caught out of position. Sharks sniper Teemu Selanne, who had five goals in the series, hurried a wraparound attempt at the opposite side but curled a backhander off the far post.

"It was a bad bounce," Selanne said. "That's why I'm very disappointed. When you get the chance, you have to bury it. ... We had some chances. To get the first goal would have been huge."

"It didn't really matter to me," Roy said. "It mattered for the result of the game, of course. I knew I had a good focus even if he scored. We might not be here right now; we might be in overtime or something like that."

Forsberg finally broke the scoreless tie with 2:10 to go in the second period. He worked a give-and-go with Alex Tanguay, getting the return feed in the right faceoff circle and moving down low before chipping a shot by goaltender Evgeni Nabokov's stick side and inside the left post.

"Patrick gives us that opportunity," Avalanche defenseman Rob Blake said. "They were all over us, the puck gets cleared out, Peter and Tangs made an unbelievable play, and away we go."

It was the seventh goal of the series and second career Game Seven goal for Forsberg, who returned for the playoffs after sitting out most of the season and undergoing foot surgery.

"It was very nerve-racking," Forsberg said. "It was 6-on-4 in the last minute. It was very nerve-racking, but Patty came up with a couple of good saves and we won."

The Sharks pulled Nabokov for an extra attacker and made it 6-on-4 with 56 seconds left after Blake was penalized for sticking out his leg and tripping Selanne behind the net. Roy stopped defenseman Mike Rathje's blast with 26 seconds left and smothered a shot by Selanne from the left circle with nine seconds to play.

"Everybody did a tremendous job killing it off," Colorado captain Joe Sakic said of the late power play. "I thought we did a pretty good job of keeping things to the outside."

"We played hard, we fought hard right to the end. Roy was the difference," San Jose coach Darryl Sutter said. "We showed that we could play with them. Now we have to figure out a way to beat them."

Nabokov stopped 22 shots in his first Game Seven but could not backstop the Sharks into the conference finals for the first time in team history.

"We had big plans," said San Jose captain Owen Nolan, who took a hip check from Forsberg late in the first period and suffered a charley horse. "We expected to go a lot farther than the second round, and to lose like this is frustrating. The opportunities were there, we just didn't capitalize on them."

Those opportunities included a point-blank shot that Adam Graves flipped off Roy's chest with 4:13 to go in the second period. Moments later, Roy came up with back-to-back stops on Marco Sturm. And with 3:15 left in the second, he made a stick save on Patrick Marleau from close range.

"I didn't see too many shots in the first half of the game, but you always want to make sure you are focused and you stay sharp," Roy said. "That gives you the chance to do something good."

Nabokov, who battled Roy to a scoreless tie in January 2000 in this building, kept pace with the future Hall of Famer for nearly 38 minutes. He made three solid stops on Chris Drury and got his left pad on a wrister from the left circle by Brad Larsen midway through the third period.

Larsen and fellow rookie Riku Hahl turned the momentum in Colorado's favor with a tenacious shift late in the second period. Forsberg broke through a couple of minutes later.

"It was a great team effort, every player from forward to defenseman," Roy said. "We had to play everybody in front of the puck and block a lot of shots. I think we made a log of good plays and it was a tough series. Both teams could have easily moved on and fortunately, it was us."

Asked if he thought the better team won, Nolan replied, "No, I think the team that capitalized on their opportunity won the game, won the series. We had two chances to win the series, but we didn't capitalize on those. ... It's not like we had a bad game. They had the opportunity and they buried it. Same thing tonight. There's no excuse. We should have scored and we didn't."