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With series even, Avalanche back in Minnesota

Apr 17, 2008 - 1:48 PM Colorado at Minnesota 9:00 pm EDT Western Conference quarterfinals Series tied, 2-2

ST. PAUL, Minnesota (Ticker) - The Colorado Avalanche put together a dominating performance to even the Western Conference quarterfinals.

The sixth-seeded Avalanche try to duplicate their effort on Thursday when they visit the third-seeded Minnesota Wild for Game Five of the best-of-seven series.

Tyler Arnason and defenseman Ruslan Salei each had a goal and an assist to lead Colorado to a 5-1 victory over the Wild in Game Four, tying the series at two games apiece.

Andrew Brunette, Wojtek Wolski and Milan Hejduk also scored for Colorado, which snapped a four-game home losing streak in the postseason and avoided overtime for the fourth consecutive game in the series.

"Sometimes it's tough emotionally when you lose in overtime," Avalanche left wing Ryan Smyth said. "The big thing is, we've got a lot of veteran players in here, guys that calm things down and we played disciplined (on Tuesday)."

Colorado may have evened the series, but realizes things are only going to get tougher.

"You don't want to go to Minnesota with a deficit of (three-games-to-one), but it's another game," Avalanche right wing Ian Laperriere. "(Game Five is) going to be another battle. It's going to be hard. We know they're going to come hard at us and we need to be ready."

Mikko Koivu netted Minnesota's lone goal, which was assisted by Brian Roloston and Keith Carney.

Despite Tuesday's loss, Roloston is just happy that the Wild managed to claim one win on the road.

"We don't feel good about losing 5-1, but we do feel good that we got (a win here)," he said. "That's a heck of a team over there and it was just one of those things that kind of snowballed. But it's (two games apiece) going back to our place, and we'll take it."