• Preview
• Recap
• Bleachers

Svatos propels Avalanche past Hurricanes

Jan 13, 2008 - 3:57 AM RALEIGH, North Carolina (Ticker) -- Marek Svatos scored both the tying and go-ahead goals just over two minutes apart late in the third period as the Colorado Avalanche rallied to edge the Carolina Hurricanes, 5-4, on Saturday.

After Svatos tied the contest with 6:10 remaining in the session, he put Colorado ahead at 15:57, gathering the rebound of Tyler Arnason's shot and beating goaltender Cam Ward for his 19th goal of the season.

Colorado won for just the second time in nine games, while Carolina lost its fourth consecutive contest on home ice.

"Hopefully, we'll get some momentum from this game," Svatos said. "It was huge for us. We played well the whole game but just weren't getting the results. I got a couple of chances there in the third period and was able to put them in the net. It was a great game by our whole line."

Quite naturally, Carolina coach Peter Laviolette had a different assessment of the game.

"Any loss is deflating," Laviolette said. "The last game, the game before was deflating and embarrassing. Tonight, we played hard and it's certainly not the results we were looking for. We let it get away. We had it, 4-2, with nine minutes to go and we let it get away. That's going to be a tough one to swallow."

With the Hurricanes enjoying a 4-2 advantage midway through the third period, rookie Cody McLeod halved the deficit with his third goal of the season.

"We played really well the whole game, we just got going late," McLeod said.

Colorado coach Joel Quenneville was happy to see his team break out of its offensive funk.

"The change was, we finally scored some goals," Quenneville said. "You get rewarded when you play like that."

After Erik Cole gave Carolina a 1-0 lead, Keith Aucoin doubled the advantage by scoring for the second time in as many games.

The undrafted right wing blasted a shot from the right faceoff circle, which deflected off netminder Jose Theodore's glove and in for his second career tally.

Aucoin, who was recalled from Albany of the American Hockey League on Thursday, had Carolina's lone goal in a 4-1 loss to the New Jersey Devils later that night.

"I thought the players we had up from Albany did a real good job tonight," Laviolette said of both Aucoin and defenseman Tim Conboy, who was recalled Saturday afternoon.

After Milan Hejduk halved the deficit just 50 seconds into the second period, Chad LaRose restored Carolina's two-goal advantage three minutes later.

Aucoin blasted a shot on goal from a sharp angle in the left faceoff circle that Theodore stopped, but the goalie was unable to control the rebound. LaRose saw the puck in the crease and tapped it into the net for his sixth goal of the campaign.

Paul Stastny, the Avalanche's lone All-Star, got his team within one midway through the second period, corralling the rebound of Jaroslav Hlinka's shot and beating Ward.

For Stastny, it was his 16th goal of the season - and snapped a career-worst 10-game drought.

Cory Stillman put Carolina ahead, 4-2, by blasting a shot from the right circle past Theodore for his 20th goal.

"It's frustrating leading by two goals in the third period to let the game slip away," Carolina's Sergei Samsonov said.