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 Vancouver's Henrik Sedin celebrates his first period goal against Colorado's Craig Anderson Saturday at the Pepsi Center. (REUTERS) |
It's been missing for a while but the Canucks finally found their scoring touch again Saturday at the Pepsi Center.
Henrik Sedin led the surprising outburst with his first career hat-trick as Vancouver got points from 13 different players in a 8-2 win over Colorado to snap themselves out of a three-game skid.
The Canucks also got three assists from both Mason Raymond and Ryan Johnson to end Craig Anderson's night early, as he was pulled after allowing four goals on 22 shots.
At the other end, Roberto Luongo kept the Avalanche forwards at bay with a 32-save performance, including a couple huge stops during a third period penalty kill.
With a 1-3 road-trip record heading into this final one before going home, the Canucks took the lead just 1:57 into the game with Henrik's 10th of the season. And they didn't look back after that, scoring twice more in the period, including one from Jannik Hansen, his first tally of the season.
Defenceman Mathieu Schneider added another in the second to put Vancouver up by four.
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The Canucks got a brief scare in the third when Colorado battled back to cut Vancouver's lead in half with goals by Marek Svatos and Matt Hendricks, but Steve Bernier and Henrik responded to restore the four-goal lead.
Henrik's three goals now puts him with 23 points, and his 17th since his brother's injury.
Bernier, who added another for his sixth of the season, and Tanner Glass both scored late in regulation to add insult to injury.
Entering the game, the Avalanche had allowed only 2.26 goals against per game -fourth best in the league- while Anderson, was third overall amongst goaltenders with a .930 save percentage and tied for second with 11 wins.
Peter Budaj, who replaced Anderson, allowed four goals on eight shots.
Meanwhile, the Canucks had only scored three goals in their past three games and were 20th overall with a 2.60 goals per game average.
With the win, the Canucks move within five points of Colorado for the division lead and four behind Calgary for the second spot.
Vancouver will return home to host the same Avalanche team next Friday at GM Place.