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Stastny, Hejduk and Smyth lift Avalanche over Flames

Feb 27, 2008 - 6:32 AM CALGARY, Alberta (Ticker) -- The Colorado Avalanche flaunted their new-found health and picked up a pair of valuable points.

Paul Stastny, Ryan Smyth, and Milan Hejduk each finished with a goal and an assist to lead the Avalanche to a 3-2 overtime victory over the Calgary Flames on Tuesday.

John-Michael Liles took an ugly shot to the face in the first period but recovered to post two assists for Colorado, which continued its string of blasts from the pasts by trading for defenseman Adam Foote, who played on both the 1996 and 2001 Stanley Cup champion teams. The club signed former MVP Peter Forsberg on Monday.

"My first period - the second period - was like I never put the skates on before," Foote said. "It was like a summer break. It was simply because I wasn't warmed up. As I got going, I felt a lot better in the third, but not great either."

Stastny and Smyth were two-thirds of a trio of Avalanche weapons - along with captain Joe Sakic - that has missed at least a month of time due to injury. Smyth was the first of the group to come back, but had yet to tally a point in six games since his return.

But when Hejduk had his power-play blast from the left circle stopped in overtime, Smyth earned his second point of the game, taking the rebound and flipping it backhanded to Stastny on the right side of the net. The All-Star wristed it into the open net behind Flames goaltender Miikka Kiprusoff for the game-winner.

Hejduk and Smyth were credited with assists on the goal - Stastny's 19th of the season.

Stastny's game-winner came off a controversial penalty to captain Jarome Iginla in overtime. He was called for tripping on what looked like a blatant dive by Liles.

"I wasn't trying to dive," Liles said. "I thought I made a good move. It's just one of those things where I kind of spun around more than anything. They're going to disagree with it."

And disagree, they did. Flames coach Mike Keenan didn't even try to hide his displeasure.

"Just as coaches get upset with players, I'm sure that the people in charge of officiating would be upset with those types of calls," Keenan said. "If they're not, then I'd be disappointed with the whole process.

"Every call, they were going over to give an explanation to the Avalanche bench. I said, 'At least you could respect our bench and give us the same explanation.' They seemed to be annoyed right from the very beginning and took it out on us in the game."

The win pushed Colorado (32-26-6, 70 points) to within two points of the idle Nashville Predators (32-24-8, 72 points) for the eighth and final spot in the Western Conference playoff picture.

"It was definitely a huge two points for us," Hejduk said. "If you look at the standings, it's really tight. These are four-point games."

"We needed the two points in the worst way," Avalanche coach Joel Quenneville said. "Calgary played a great first 40 minutes and we had a little bit more in the third and we finally scored. It was a pretty even game. Very timely for us.

Hejduk forced the extra session, snapping a seven-game scoring drought with a power-play goal at the 13:33 mark of the third period. Stastny took the puck into the Calgary zone before dropping it back to Hejduk, who blasted it past Kiprusoff.

The Flames grabbed the lead on a fluke goal with 7:02 left in the second. Defenseman Robyn Regehr blasted a shot from above the left circle that looked to be headed wide of the net.

But Avalanche blue-liner Scott Hannan, who was protecting the far side of the net, let the puck glance off his skate and into the empty net behind Jose Theodore for a shorthanded tally.

Theodore finished with 27 saves.

Smyth's 12th goal of the season - and first since December 17 - opened the scoring at 4:08 of the first, and Dustin Boyd tied it for Calgary with 4:25 remaining in the opening period.

Kiprusoff ended with 31 saves for the Flames (33-22-9, 75 points), who remained third in the West and gained a point in the Northwest Division on the Minnesota Wild (34-24-5, 73 points), who lost to the Washington Capitals on Tuesday.

"It's a game where we had a lot of good chances," Iginla said. "We could have had more than two tonight. We were prepared to win a one-goal game. They got some late power-play goals, which were the difference."