Avalanche Can End Red Wings’ Season Tonight

The Colorado Avalanche missed one chance Monday to eliminate the Detroit Red Wings and clinch the Western Conference title. The Avalanche, which still has a 3-2 lead, is determined not to let another opportunity slip from its grasp when the series resumes tonight in Denver.

“We’re still in the driver’s seat. They have to beat us twice,” center Joe Sakic said. “We don’t want to come back [to Detroit]. It would be a tough place to win in Game 7.”

The Red Wings prolonged the series Monday with a 5-2 victory at Joe Louis Arena. They split their previous two games in Denver.

The Red Wings are hoping Sergei Fedorov’s one-goal, one-assist performance in Game 5 was the start of a scoring streak. Their top scorer this season with 39 goals and 107 points, Fedorov had gone 10 games without a playoff goal. He is playing well defensively in this series against Peter Forsberg, but he is paid to score.

“You have a lot of major adapting to do in the playoffs, and you adapt from one game to the next,” he said. “You do what the coach wants you to do.”

Teammate Steve Yzerman saw a change in Fedorov’s game. “He’s been really playing hard and working hard and doing the little things well,” Yzerman said, “and now the offensive part is starting to come back. You’re not really concentrating on scoring when you’re playing a defensive role, but he’s starting to play well in all parts of the rink.”

Forward Keith Primeau, scratched Monday because of a pulled groin muscle, is questionable tonight. Skeptics suspect he’s actually being benched because he has only one goal--and that an empty-netter--in the playoffs.

Detroit overcame a 3-2 deficit in the quarterfinals against St. Louis, but it never trailed, 3-1. However, Coach Scotty Bowman remains confident. “We said all along we’d have to win on the road, and we’re a team that has played well on the road,” he said. “We had to win Game 3 of this series in Denver [to avoid trailing, 3-0,] and we did. Now we have to win Game 6.”