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Third-quarter flurry powers Avalanche to rare road win

Dec 14, 2007 - 5:40 AM By Jim Diamond PA SportsTicker Contributing Writer

NASHVILLE, Tennessee (Ticker) -- Ryan Smyth and Ian Laperriere each scored third-period goals to power the Colorado Avalanche to a 2-1 victory over the Nashville Predators on Thursday.

Peter Budaj came within 19 seconds of recording his first shutout of the season, finishing with 30 saves for the Avalanche, who recorded just their fifth win in 16 road games.

Smyth snapped a scoreless tie at 4:58 of the third period with his 10th goal of the campaign. After a turnover by Nashville's David Legwand just outside his own blue line, Jaroslav Hlinka fed the puck to Smyth on the left side.

Smyth's slap shot from the left faceoff circle somehow slipped between Chris Mason's pads even though the goaltender was in position to make the stop with no traffic in front of him.

"Obviously, we knew that we wanted to generate more shots on the net, and we knew that it was a battle of the goaltenders tonight," Smyth said. "Tonight was (about) getting pucks to the net, and in my case, it just trickled through the five-hole."

"We turned the puck over on the blue line, but yeah, (Mason) has to have that," Nashville coach Barry Trotz said.

Laperriere added an important insurance goal with 3:15 remaining. Hlinka, who was on the right side, drew the attention of the defense long enough to fire the puck toward Mason.

Stationed in front of the netminder, Laperriere easily tipped in the puck for a 2-0 advantage.

"Great pass, great pass," Laperriere said. "I gave it to him wide, and everyone thought he was going to shoot it. I stayed in front of the net hoping for a rebound, but he made a (heck) of a pass, and I just tipped it in."

Laperriere was playing for just the second time in 14 games due to a knee injury.

"Lappy had a heck of a game, and Hlinka had a really nice game as well," Colorado coach Joel Quenneville said. "He made a great feed on the game-winning goal and made several other nice plays."

Alexander Radulov made things interesting late as Nashville halved the deficit with 21 seconds to go. The Russian worked around a mad scramble in front of the net and fired a wrist shot that went low to the glove side of Budaj.

Mason made 30 saves for the Predators, who lost by one goal for the second time in as many home games.

"Tonight wasn't characteristic of us," Mason said. "Usually, we are really tough to play against here. We really needed these points."

"We were winning a lot of one-goal games, and now we've lost a few by one goal," Trotz said. "Those are a little harder because you are one puck away from a point, and you try to get points - be it one or two points - every night."