October 19, 1996
DENVER -- Scott Young and Joe Sakic each had two goals and an assist as
the Colorado Avalanche crushed the Vancouver Canucks 9-2 Saturday night.
The Avalanche broke open a scoreless game with four goals in the second period and are 4-1-1 since losing their first two games of the season.
Vancouver suffered its first-ever regular-season loss at Colorado and avoided a
shutout when Pavel Bure scored with 2:17 left in the game. Mike
Sillinger added an unassisted tally in the final minute for Vancouver.
The Canucks were 1-0-1 in Denver last season.
"We didn't do one thing right tonight," Vancouver defenseman Jyrki Lumme said. "Too many mistakes. It's unbelievable this has happened."
Young opened the scoring at 1:53 of the second period, firing a
slap shot from the top of the left faceoff circle that got a
piece of goaltender Kirk McLean before finding the net.
Valeri Kamensky intercepted Jassen Cullimore's clearing attempt along the boards just over six minutes later to set up Sylvain Lefebvre's goal that made it 2-0.
"Once we broke the ice in the second period, it looked like
everything went into the net," Young said. "This will stick in
their mind. Nine goals (ticked) them off. Next game (against
them) is in four days, so we expect them to be fresh."
Rookie Aaron Miller added his third goal of the season,
converting Peter Forsberg's centering pass from behind the net
at 15:08, and Sakic put the Avalanche ahead by four 61 seconds
later.
"After the first period, we felt lucky to have a tie," Forsberg
said. "I don't know what happened to their defense in the second
period. I guess we outplayed them. With everybody producing
like that, it's kind of hard to stop us."
Every player in the Colorado lineup picked up at least one
point, except defensemen Adam Foote, Sandis Ozolinsh and Brent
Severyn.
Colorado continued its attack in the third, collecting five
goals in a span of 5:18.
Mike Keane got his first of the season
at 7:05 and Alexei Gusarov scored 93 seconds later to build a
6-0 cushion.
Sakic got his second of the game 47 seconds after
that and Kamensky tallied 74 seconds later to build an
eight-goal bulge.
Young got his fifth of the season on the power play at 12:23 to complete the scoring for the Avalanche, which has 31 goals in its last six games after being held to three in its first two contests.
Colorado's Patrick Roy made 23 saves and improved his career mark against the
Canucks to 14-6-1.
"It's nice to finish this homestand with a win," said Colorado
center Mike Ricci, who had a pair of assists. "This team
doesn't like losing two in a row. It's kind of a motto with
this team. We gave up some easy ones on Patty, but we'll learn
from that. That's one thing about this team. We learn from our
mistakes real fast."
Jon's 3 stars:
1. Joe Sakic
2. Scott Young
3. Uwe Krupp
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