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Cowan remains hot as Canucks top Coyotes

Mar 9, 2007 - 7:17 AM GLENDALE, Arizona (Ticker) -- In continuing his amazing run, Jeff Cowan helped create a little breathing room for the Vancouver Canucks.

Cowan extended his goal-scoring streak to four games and Brendan Morrison added a tally and an assist as the Canucks opened a huge lead and held on for a 4-2 victory over the Phoenix Coyotes.

Captain Markus Naslund and defenseman Sami Salo also scored for Vancouver (40-22-5), which increased its lead in the Northwest Division to four points over Calgary (36-22-9) and Minnesota (37-24-7).

The Canucks are third in the Western Conference, six points behind the Anaheim Ducks (40-17-11) and 11 back of the league-leading Nashville Predators (45-18-6).

"I thought we played well the first half of the game, then they started coming back," Naslund said. "They played well and we didn't finish strong, but we'll take the two points."

After scoring just eight goals in 46 games for Los Angeles last season, Cowan has netted six during his current run, including the first two multi-goal efforts of his career. Prior to his hot streak, Cowan had not tallied in his first 44 games this season.

Claimed off waivers from the Kings in December, Cowan gave the Canucks a 1-0 lead at 7:50 of the first period, when he beat goaltender Curtis Joseph with a backhander from the doorstep. The 30-year-old left wing is five goals shy of his career high set in 2003-04.

"I tried to get a shot off and fanned on it, but I stayed with it and (the puck) came right back to me," Cowan said.

After helping set up Cowan's tally, Morrison doubled Vancouver's advantage by deflecting defenseman Brent Sopel's shot from the point past Joseph less than two minutes later. Naslund made it 3-0 three minutes afterward and Salo tallied at 8:55 of the second for a four-goal cushion.

Dany Sabourin made 26 saves in a rare start for the Canucks, who have won four in a row and improved to 10-1-1 in their last 12 games.

"I felt pretty good tonight, right off the bat," Sabourin said. "I like to go out and play the puck. It's always good to do when you don't see a lot of shots early in the game."

The win was just the second this season for Sabourin, who made his first start since a 38-save performance in a 3-2 victory over Anaheim on February 20.

"That is out of my control," said Sabourin, who has appeared in just eight games as Roberto Luongo's backup. "I'll just keep doing what I've been doing since the beginning."

Despite coming away with the win, Vancouver coach Alain Vigneault was not thrilled with the quality of the ice at Jobing.com Arena.

"To tell you the truth, the quality of the ice was the probably the worst I've seen in this league," he said. "It was like playing with a tennis ball out there, it was so bad. That being said, we did what we had to do. We got two points. We rolled four lines and six defensemen."

Captain Shane Doan had a goal and an assist and Jeff Taffe also scored for the Coyotes, who have lost four straight.

"Every goalie you face in this league is going to be good, but when you get a second-string goalie, you've got to take advantage of that," Taffe said. "We didn't test him early."

The Coyotes only mustered 16 shots over the first two periods.

Doan sliced Vancouver's lead to 4-1 at 11:38 of the second period, when he took a pass from defenseman Derek Morris and jammed the puck between Sabourin's pads to extend his points streak to seven games. The tally was the 24th this season for the right wing, who netted a career-high 30 last campaign.

Joseph suffered his third straight loss, a slide in which he has allowed 12 goals on 86 shots. The veteran, who has 443 careerwins, still is four shy of tying Hall Of Famer Terry Sawchuk for fourth place on the all-time list.