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Svatos, Smyth propel Avalanche past Blackhawks

Mar 8, 2009 - 11:41 PM CHICAGO (Ticker) -- Marek Svatos and Ryan Smyth each scored a goal and set up another as the Colorado Avalanche snapped a six-game losing streak by trouncing the Chicago Blackhawks, 5-1, on Sunday.

Ben Guite, rookie Chris Stewart and Milan Hejduk also tallied and Tyler Arnason notched three assists for the Avalanche, who tuned up their defense after surrendering four or more goals in each of their previous four games.

"Having a few days off didn't hurt," Smyth said. "It gave us a chance to work on a few things and look at what we did wrong during our six-game losing streak."

Captain Jonathan Toews netted a power-play goal and rookie Antti Niemi made 24 saves in his second career start for Chicago, which opened a four-game homestand by dropping its second straight contest.

"Right now it seems to be a lot of little things that are hurting us, not switching right, missing checks," Toews said. "Not getting the puck in the attacking zone when we need to. We have to come back and be ready to play our next game."

Colorado got on the board early and often as Guite opened the scoring with 6:26 remaining in the first period and Stewart registered his 10th tally of the season 3 1/2 minutes later.

Toews halved the deficit on the man advantage at 6:53 of the second, but Hejduk restored the two-goal bulge with four minutes remaining in the session.

"It was a 3-on-2 (rush), I was coming in late and Ryan Smyth made a great pass to me," Hejduk said. "My shot just made it in past the goalie."

Svatos exposed Niemi again to balloon the lead 2 1/2 minutes later.

Smyth secured the win at 5:37 of the third, taking pass from Svatos and lifting a backhanded shot into the vacant net for his 24th goal of the campaign.

"All aspects of our game were off today in every single area; you could use some bad adjectives to describe our play today," Blackhawks coach Joel Quenneville said.

Peter Budaj turned aside 24 shots for the Avalanche, who have endured six losing streaks of at least three games this season.

"You have to take one game at a time," Budaj said. "Obviously the standings don't look good for us, but you never know. If we put up the same effort we did tonight, we will win a lot more games."