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Blake, Moore help Maple Leafs end slide

Jan 30, 2009 - 6:12 AM By Derek Nagy PA SportsTicker Contributing Writer

DENVER (Ticker) -- Jason Blake rescued the Toronto Maple Leafs from another defeat.

Blake scored the go-ahead goal early in the third period and added two assists as the Maple Leafs snapped a four-game losing streak Thursday with a 7-4 victory over the Colorado Avalanche.

Dominic Moore netted two goals and set up another while Alexei Ponikarovsky, Niklas Hagman, defenseman Ian White and Nikolai Kulemin collected two assists apiece for the Maple Leafs, who had lost eight of their previous nine contests.

Mikhail Grabovski recorded a tally and an assist, Nik Antropov, Matt Stajan and former Avalanche defenseman Jeff Finger also tallied and Vesa Toskala made 16 saves for Toronto.

"After that last goal went in, I thought we deserved that," Moore said. "We've had a lot of opportunities that haven't bounced our way in recent memory. It was fitting."

All-Star Milan Hejduk scored twice, blue-liner John-Michael Liles netted a goal and set up another and rookie Chris Stewart also tallied for Colorado, which has lost three games in a row and six of its last seven.

"It was definitely a tough loss," Hejduk said. "We were battling the whole game, but we gave them too much room in front of the net. We made some mistakes and everything went into the net."

With the contest knotted at 4-4, Blake capitalized on a turnover to give the Maple Leafs the lead at 4:56 of the third.

In his own zone, Colorado's Wojtek Wolski won a faceoff back to defenseman Brett Clark, who lost control of the puck. Blake picked it up, skated in front of the net and fired a wrist shot over former Toronto netminder Andrew Raycroft for his 16th goal of the season.

"Sometimes you get breaks like that," Blake said. "We had a good effort tonight."

Less than a minute later, it appeared the Avalanche had tied the contest when Hejduk wristed the puck past Toskala. But as hats began to litter the ice at the Pepsi Center, the goal was waved off and Ryan Smyth received a two-minute penalty for goaltender interference.

The replay clearly showed that Smyth was checked into Toskala - who was out of his crease - by Maple Leafs rookie blue-liner Luke Schenn, and Avalanche fans jeered the officials for several minutes.

"(The referee) called it as he saw it," Smyth said. "Obviously not what I thought. But I had to sit in the box for two (minutes). (Toskala) was out of the blue paint. I no question tried to avoid the one side and felt like I got shoved."

"They took the goalie out of the play, and you know who it was, Ryan Smyth, and he's known for doing that," Toronto coach Ron Wilson said. "He's got a reputation, and the referee was watching."

Stajan and Moore scored later in the session to provide the final margin.

Moore also had given the Maple Leafs a 4-3 lead in the latter stages of a wild second period that saw a total of five goals scored. Blake skated through the offensive zone and slid a perfect pass to Moore, who fired a one-timer past Raycroft from the left faceoff circle with 5:27 remaining.

But Liles tied the contest, which featured six lead changes, with his sixth goal of the season at 3:10 of the third.