Home improvement

Jean-Sebastien Giguere made
24 saves for his first shutout in two seasons and the Colorado Avalanche beat
the Dallas Stars 3-0 Friday night.
Paul Stastny and Chuck
Kobasew each had a goal and Matt Duchene scored an empty-net goal with 4.5
seconds left to seal the win and snap Colorado's three-game skid.
Giguere's last shutout was
against Ottawa on Feb. 6, 2010, when he was with Toronto.
Kari Lehtonen had 42 saves
for Dallas, which has lost four straight.
Colorado has struggled at
home this season, winning for just the third time in 10 games.
Kobasew gave Colorado a 1-0
lead when he redirected a shot by Ryan Wilson 6:10 into the first period. It
was Kobasew's third goal of the season.
The Avalanche nearly made it
a two-goal lead early in the third when Gabriel Landeskog was in front of
Lehtonen near the end of a power play. Lehtonen stuffed the rookie's shot and
the rebound shot by Ryan O'Reilly to keep it 1-0.
They finally got the
insurance goal on a power play when Stastny poked in a rebound with 5:26 left
for his sixth goal of the season.
The Avalanche lost 1-0 in
Minnesota on Thursday night, but 24 hours later handed Dallas its second shutout
loss on consecutive nights. The Stars lost to Florida 6-0 at home Thursday.
Dallas couldn't generate
much against Colorado. The Stars had nine in the third period when they tried
to get the equalizer. The Stars took three penalties in the game's final seven
minutes to make any comeback even tougher.
The Avalanche outshot the
Stars 16-4 in the first period and 33-15 through two frames. Colorado had the
only power play through the first 40 minutes. Dallas got its first
man-advantage opportunity with 15:43 left in the game but couldn't get a shot
on net.
Notes: Friday's game kicked off an eight-game
homestand for Colorado, its longest continuous homestand since moving to
Denver. The Avalanche had a nine-game homestand in 2001-02 that wrapped around
the Winter Olympics.
-by Associated Press-
Eurolanche.com, Worldwide, eurolanche@eurolanche.com
19/11/2011 - 06:03