The Colorado Avalanche took advantage of a fatigued Dallas Stars team with a convincing 4-1 victory on Valentines Day in Denver. The Stars were playing on the second half a back-to-back after defeating the Florida Panthers the previous night in Dallas.
The Avalanche (23-22-11) snapped a four game losing streak while the Stars (26-22-8) lost for the first time in their last five games on the road.
Alex Tanguay led the way for Colorado with one goal, one assist, and a plus-2 rating as the Avalanche improved to 4-0-0 against the Stars this season.
Jarome Iginla tied Vincent Damphousse for 45th all-time with 1,205 career points with a third period goal.
Jhonas Enroth made 26 saves in his first start for Dallas after being acquired from the Buffalo Sabres on Wednesday. Jamie Benn played in his 400th NHL game – all of which have come with the Stars.
Cody McLeod dropped the gloves with Curtis McKenzie in the first period. The Avs’ enforcer was later assessed a game misconduct for punching Jason Demers behind the Varlamov’s net in the third period.
McLeod – who leads the league with 14 fighting majors – was selected as the first star of the game after recording five hits and 30 penalty minutes in the contest.
Colorado failed to convert on their one power play opportunity – they have now gone 11 games and 32 chances in a row without a power play goal.
Gabriel Landeskog opened the scoring at 11:28 of the first period when he redirected Nathan MacKInnon’s shot past Enroth. It was the second straight game Landeskog scored the first goal for Colorado.
Tanguay scored in the second period to open the Avalanche’s first two-goal lead since Jan. 30 against the Nashville Predators.
Iginla redirected a Brad Stuart point shot for his team-leading 18th goal of the season to give the Avalanche a commanding three-goal lead early in the third period. Stuart and Nick Holden collided as the point shot was released, leaving both players shaken up. After taking some time to regain their bearings, both players were able to finish the game.
Lindy Ruff elected to pull the Stars goalie with over 10 minutes left in the game. The move paid immediate dividends as Jason Spezza scored a 4-on-4 goal less than one minute later. Enroth returned to his net when the Avalanche returned to full strength.
Dennis Everberg added a late goal in the final minute of the game on a beautiful set-up by Tanguay.
“I liked the way we backchecked. Our tracking was solid,” Avalanche head coach Patrick Roy said. “We were coming back, we were working as a unit of a five. I thought that was a really solid team effort. That’s the type of game that I was hoping to see us play after what we did against the Rangers. I thought we did a lot of good things tonight. I was happy to see the team responding the way they did. It was an important game.”
The Avalanche continue their four-game homestand when the Phoenix Coyotes come to town on Monday.
Nathan is a staff writer for Mile High Sports. He can be reached on Twitter at @TheRealNatron.
