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Sakic, Avalanche too strong for Flyers

Oct 17, 2008 - 4:55 AM By Dave Reed PA SportsTicker Contributing Writer

DENVER (Ticker) -- Five different players scored a goal and captain Joe Sakic notched three assists as the Colorado Avalanche recorded their first win of the season, a 5-2 triumph over the struggling Philadelphia Flyers on Thursday.

Marek Svatos, Milan Hejduk and Paul Stastny each netted a power-play goal for Colorado, which went 3-for-11 with the man advantage.

Defenseman Brett Clark and Cody McCormick also tallied, Wojtek Wolski notched two assists and Andrew Raycroft made 16 saves for the Avalanche, who had a 34-18 advantage in shots.

"I would have liked to get a little more work at the start," said Raycroft, who faced only three shots in the first period. "It was one of those games. It's great that we're playing as well as we are, but it gets hard when it's only penalty shots and power-play shots."

Raycroft's limited workload aside, Sakic and Colorado coach Tony Granato were thrilled with the performance.

"We definitely played real well tonight. It was a very important game, and we needed to have it," Sakic said. "Three out of the four games, we really played well (and) outplayed the other team. It's something that we have to keep building on."

"Tonight, we put forth a 60-minute effort from start to finish," Granato said. "Our full lineup was very solid all the way around. Obviously, it was a big two points for us."

Simon Gagne scored on a penalty shot for his fourth goal in as many games and captain Mike Richards also tallied for Philadelphia (0-3-1), which has yet to record a victory this season.

"There's no secret," Flyers coach John Stevens said. "We got outworked and didn't win any puck battles. When you do all the little things so poorly, we end up being a very easy team to play against."

"It's definitely very frustrating at this time," Philadelphia's Daniel Briere said. "We didn't expect to get off to a slow start like we have so far the last four games. I know it's a cliche, but the worst thing you can do right now is point fingers. We need to stay together, regroup. It's a long season, there's more than four games played. There's still lots of time. But the urgency needs to show up now in our game."

Clark opened the scoring when he blasted a one-timer between goaltender Martin Biron's pads 9:01 into the first period. Sakic set up the tally, accepting an outlet pass from Wolski in the neutral zone and skating around the defense on the right side before feeding Clark at the top of the right faceoff circle.

Svatos doubled the advantage with a power-play goal with 3:51 remaining in the first. The tally was the first since February 22 for Svatos, who missed the final 16 games of the 2007-08 season after suffering a torn ACL on March 1.

Gagne halved the deficit 4:33 into the second period by converting a penalty shot.

After serving a hooking penalty, Gagne jumped out of the box and received a pass. The Quebec native was hooked from behind by defenseman John-Michael Liles as he skated in on Raycroft, creating the penalty-shot opportunity.

Despite his early success, Gagne is disappointed in the overall play of the team.

"We're not playing the way we're supposed to be playing," Gagne said. "We're playing like it's preseason right now. We're not ready to play, we don't battle, we don't do the little things right now. We're looking for the easy game, and that's exactly what we did in the first period. If we keep playing like that, it's going to be tough to win a game this year."

The teams traded power-play tallies until McCormick gave Colorado a two-goal cushion with 36 seconds remaining in the middle period.

David Jones forced a turnover at Philadelphia's blue line, then fed McCormick, who driving toward the right goalpost. McCormick chipped the puck over Biron's pad for his first tally of the season.

"It was a great play by David Jones," McCormick said. "It's always a bonus when me and (teammate Cody) McLeod get one."

Stastny capped the scoring with 7:17 remaining in the third.