Avalanche 7 - 1 Senators
Final
  for this game

Avs continue road trip in Ottawa

Oct 13, 2011 - 3:10 PM (Sports Network) - The Colorado Avalanche will resume their season-long five- game road trip this evening against the Ottawa Senators at Scotiabank Place.

Colorado opened its season with a loss at home versus Detroit on Saturday before bouncing back with consecutive one-goal triumphs at Boston and Columbus. In Wednesday's 3-2 shootout win over the Blue Jackets, Matt Duchene scored the game-winner in the decisive phase to lead the Avs, who have prevailed in 12 of their last 13 shootouts.

Gabriel Landeskog scored his first NHL goal to force overtime and T.J. Galiardi also tallied, while goaltender Semyon Varlamov turned away 31 of the 33 shots he faced in a winning cause. Varlamov has made at least 30 saves in each of his first three starts with the team, stopping 97-of-101 shots.

"I like the fact that we were resilient," Avs coach Joe Sacco said. "It's hard to win in this League. We found a way to come away with two points tonight."

On a down note, Colorado went 0-for-3 on the power play at Nationwide Arena and is now 0-for-10 on the season. The Avalanche are 21-10-6 against Eastern Conference opponents since 2009-10 and 49-30-6 since the 2005-06 season.

Ottawa cracked the win column with a 4-3 shootout victory over Minnesota in its home opener on Tuesday. After losing at Detroit and Toronto to kick off the new campaign, Jason Spezza scored the deciding goal in the shootout to lead the Senators to victory.

Chris Neil registered a goal and an assist and Craig Anderson stopped 24 shots in a winning effort. Sens head coach Paul MacLean earned his first win and saw his team rally from a 3-1 deficit in the third period.

"We've been plugging away here through training camp and working real hard so it's nice to see the guys getting rewarded," Spezza said.

Minnesota forward Dany Heatley made his return to Ottawa for the first time as a member of the Wild and had an assist. Heatley spent four seasons in Ottawa before demanding a trade in the summer of 2009.

Senators veteran Daniel Alfredsson has two goals and one assist so far this season and is nine goals shy of 400 in his career. Anderson is one victory away from 100 in his career.

Thursday's matchup between Colorado and Ottawa is the only one of the season, and the Avs have won four in a row. The Avalanche are just 2-5-1 in their last eight games at the Senators and will also visit Montreal and Toronto on their current road swing.






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