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Smyth nets winner as Avalanche eliminate Wild

Apr 20, 2008 - 5:58 AM DENVER (Ticker) -- The Minnesota Wild may have won the Northwest Division, but the Colorado Avalanche got the better of their rivals in the postseason.

Ryan Smyth snapped a tie with 7:40 remaining in the second period and Jose Theodore made it stand up by making 34 saves as the sixth-seeded Avalanche wrapped up their Western Conference quarterfinal series with a 2-1 triumph over the third-seeded Wild in Game Six on Saturday.

Ben Guite also tallied for Colorado, which won the series four-games-to-two and advances to the conference semifinals.

"We're the first Western Conference team to go through, so we'll see what happens and who we get to play," Colorado's Peter Forsberg said. "Definitely it's great to get a couple of days off. If you're going to go far, it's great to have a couple of days rest and get healthy before we start the next round."

Captain Joe Sakic assisted on Guite's goal to record his 184th career playoff point to tie Bryan Trottier for ninth on the NHL's all-time list. Sakic needs one more point to tie Steve Yzerman for eighth place.

While his game-winning goal accounted for the final difference, Smyth was more than willing to applaud his netminder.

"There's no doubt in our mind he's the first star of this whole series," Smyth said of Theodore. "He's been unbelievable. The guy's in a grove and he's got great confidence. He's on a high right now and we'll ride him as far as we can."

Avalanche coach Joel Quenneville echoed the same sentiment.

"He was great," Quenneville said. "None better than Game Five in Minnesota where he single-handedly got us that key victory. He's been very consistent, very quick, very alert, sharp. He really complemented our defense well."

For his part, Theodore elected to sing the praises of his teammates.

"I'm really proud of the way the guys played in front of me," he said. "It showed a lot of character coming back from a 2-1 deficit."

Aaron Voros tallied for Minnesota and Niklas Backstrom made 28 saves for the Wild.

"I'm very proud of the effort," Minnesota' Brian Rolston said. "The intensity was great for every game. We had trouble scoring. Theodore was good."

With the game tied at 1-1 midway through the second period, Smyth accepted a feed in the left faceoff circle from David Jones and blasted the puck past Backstrom and under the crossbar for his second goal of the series.

"Jonesy made a great play behind the net, fed it out and I just got it over his glove," Smyth said.

Guite opened the scoring 8:02 into the first period.

With Colorado shorthanded, Sakic forced a turnover at the Avalanche's blue line and fed a streaking Guite. The Quebec native skated in on Backstrom and wristed the puck past the Finnish netminder for his first goal of the postseason.

Voros leveled the contest just 36 seconds into the second period.

After accepting a feed from Demitra in the right circle, captain Marian Gaborik fired a cross-ice pass to Voros, who wristed a shot over Theodore's right shoulder for his first goal of the series.

It was the first and only point of the series for Gaborik, who had a team-record 42 goals and 41 assists in the regular season.

"We'll have to think about this and go from there. Life goes on," Gaborik said. "We just got to take positives from this. It's still frustrating.

"Of course I wasn't producing enough. I wish I would have made the difference, but it was very tight out there. They did a great job defensively. We tried to find a way every game out there. Either it was tight or it was Theodore."