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Sakic nets 600th goal as Avalanche outlast Flames

Feb 16, 2007 - 7:06 AM CALGARY, Alberta (Ticker) -- Joe Sakic scored a milestone goal in his club's biggest game of the season.

Sakic netted his 600th career goal and Milan Hejduk recorded his third career hat trick as the Colorado Avalanche skated to a wild 7-5 victory over the Calgary Flames.

The Avalanche improved to 3-4-0 in their last seven with a win in a game that began an important stretch of five consecutive matchups with Northwest Division rivals. Colorado also plays 13 of its next 18 games on the road.

"It was a bad game for us," Calgary captain Jarome Iginla said. "When you have a two-goal lead twice at home, those are games you have to win. But give them credit for coming back in the second period. They had a really good second period and got themselves back in it.

"We got a little bit sloppy and they took it to us. Down low, they had us hemmed in our zone, and that's usually a strength of our club. We weren't very strong in our own zone."

The Avalanche's All-Star captain, Sakic became the 17th player in NHL history to reach the 600-goal plateau when he took a pass from rookie Paul Stastny and fired the puck into an empty net with 10 seconds remaining in the third period.

"The opportunity was there, and it's not something you'd usually write up, but I'll take it any way I can," Sakic said. "The most important thing was getting the win. Just like next game, we've got to play the same way and get that game as well."

"This was a huge accomplishment," Hejduk said of Sakic's milestone tally. "It tells you Joe has played on a high level for so long. It's a pleasure to have him here."

Sakic finished with two goals and three assists and Hejduk completed his first three-goal effort of the season by snapping a 5-5 tie midway through the third period. Andrew Brunette added a tally and two assists for Colorado, which snapped a five-game losing streak at Calgary.

"We've got a real close team here," Sakic said. "For me, it's just a pleasure to be part of this group. We have a lot of fun, and like I said, we've got some work to do here. We're getting ready to try and play another game like we did tonight."

The Flames and Avalanche meet here again on Saturday and face off for the third time in six days in Colorado on Tuesday.

Iginla and Matthew Lombardi each scored twice and Craig Conroy added goal and two assists for the Flames, who fell to 1-3-2 in their last six games.

Iginla, who has five multi-goal games this season, has recorded 43 of his 64 points at home.

After wasting a 2-0 advantage in the opening session, Calgary blew its second two-goal lead late in the second period. After Iginla's second goal at 15:09 gave the Flames a 4-2 bulge, Hejduk scored twice in just under two minutes to tie the contest.

"They scored two or three goals in the first period the last time we played here, and it was a blowout," Hejduk said. "But when Joe scored at the end of the first period, it was just a one-goal game. We came out hard in the second period, and played a lot of time in their zone. It was a huge two points for us."

Hejduk sliced the deficit to 4-3 on the power play with 2:27 to go, when he banked a shot from behind the net off the back of goaltender Miikka Kiprusoff's right pad.

"There was a shot from the point and a bounce off the boards," Hejduk said. "I noticed Kiprusoff was not quite in the net, so I thought I could bang it off his leg. It was kind of lucky, but it went in."

"It was a tough, tough night," Kiprusoff said. "We knew they like to try and score from behind the net like that."

The right wing tied the game just 1:44 later, taking defenseman Karlis Skrastins' pass and flipping the puck past Kiprusoff.

Colorado defenseman Brett Clark and Lombardi traded tallies less than two minutes apart in the third before Hejduk completed the hat trick with the game-winner at 10:16. After skating into the slot, he redirected blue-liner Ken Klee's pass by Kiprusoff to give the Avalanche a 6-5 lead.

Alex Tanguay set up three tallies for Calgary, which acquired the left wing from Colorado during the offseason.

Calgary's Kristian Huselius entered with 23 points in his last 17 contests, as well as two goals and three assists in two previous meetings with Colorado, but did not record a point in this one.

The Flames lead the season series, 2-1-0, with a total of 29 goals scored in the three games.

"There has been a lot of high-scoring, back-and-forth, lead-changing kind of games," Iginla said. "The bottom line is about winning. If we won that game, great, but they outworked us in our own zone."