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Svatos' third-period goal lifts Avalanche over Flames

Feb 21, 2007 - 6:04 AM DENVER (Ticker) -- Maybe Colorado's Marek Svatos feels he has something to prove.

Svatos scored the game-winning goal early in the third period to lift the Avalanche to a 4-3 victory over the Calgary Flames.

The Avalanche improved to 3-4-0 in their last seven. They concluded a 2-1-0 stretch against the Flames in which the clubs played three times in six days.

"I like how we're competing," Colorado coach Joel Quenneville said. "There's still a lot of excitement in our team. That's what we can control. We've still got a lot of divisional games."

"I think our leadership group wasn't prepared to take control of the game," Calgary coach Jim Playfair said. "And, we weren't hard enough in the hard areas and committed enough to win the hard battles."

Svatos netted the decisive tally at 1:24 of the third period on the power play when he cut in on a partial breakaway and flipped the puck over goaltender Miikka Kiprusoff's glove.

"Fortunately, it (his goal) came at the right time," Svatos said. "It was a good feeling. It has been frustrating the last couple weeks. It's nice to get the goal. I can't remember the last time I scored a goal. It's a very good feeling."

"I think he needed to score a goal," Quenneville said. "He looked like he was dangerous with the puck, and around the puck. He had a couple nice hits. Goal scorers need to feel good about themselves when that's your bread and butter. Hopefully he can feed off this and be confident in all areas of his game."

Svatos, who entered with just one goal in his last 13 games, last tallied in a 7-3 loss to the Flames on January 11.

The right wing, who had 32 goals in 61 games last season, has just 12 in 52 games this campaign.

Paul Stastny had two goals and an assist while Milan Hejduk had the other Colorado goal. Peter Budaj made 33 saves.

"I'm just standing in the right spot at the right spot," Stastny said. "It's just quick give-and-goes and trying to get open and finding guys. You play with such good guys, you've got to find ways to get open."

Joe Sakic, who scored his 600th carer goal in a 7-5 win over the Flames on Thursday, had two assists. The center extended his points streak to nine games and has five goals and 12 assists in that span.

Tony Amonte, defenseman Dion Phaneuf and Kristian Huselius scored the goals for the Flames. Kiprusoff made 28 saves.

Huselius, who has two goals and an assist in a 5-2 win over the Avalanche on Saturday, has points in 18 of his last 20 games.

"It's not a good night when you lose," Huselius said. "You always want to win, that's the most important thing."