Roy, Avalanche Turn Away Ducks

Colorado goalie Patrick Roy was everywhere Monday. Or so it seemed.

He chased pucks into the corner, where he sometimes lingered awhile. He belted the Ducks’ Paul Kariya in the chin. He played briefly without stick. He even spent a couple minutes watching from the bench.

If the Avalanche was looking for something--or someone--to shake the team out of the doldrums, Roy’s shtick seemed to do the trick in a 4-2 victory over the Ducks.

Roy entertained the announced crowd of 16,565 at the Arrowhead Pond, even if he didn’t get credit for the victory--he had been replaced briefly by backup Craig Billington when the Avalanche scored the go-ahead goal.

Such were the oddities in the first of back-to-back games for two teams that are already jockeying for playoff position. The Ducks, who lost for the first time in six games, and Colorado are now tied at 31 points--good enough for a playoff spot if the season ended today.

Or is that looking too far ahead?

“It’s the time of year where you start looking at how many points you got to get for a spot in the playoffs,” Duck Coach Craig Hartsburg said. “You don’t want to be under .500. if you’re under .500, you’re scrambling.”

The Ducks are 12-12-7 after squandering a 2-1 second-period lead.

“We didn’t come hungry tonight,” Hartsburg said. “We could have put them away or put them down. Our competing wasn’t good enough to win a game like this.”

The Avalanche players knew the significance as well, especially with a rematch against the Ducks tonight.

“This is a chance to pick up four points on them,” said Avalanche right wing Claude Lemieux, who scored the game-clincher at 12 minutes 7 seconds of the third period. “It can be a big swing.”

It was a game of big swings.

By the time the first period was half over, four players had been sent off for fighting, two had been given misconduct penalties and the Ducks’ Jim McKenzie had been handed a triple: two minutes for instigating, five minutes for fighting and a game misconduct.

Colorado then rallied from a 2-1 second-period deficit to end an 0-3-1 skid, with Roy deserving the credit.

The Ducks could do little against him despite several good opportunities, including two shots by a wide-open Teemu Selanne. Roy stopped 27 of 29 shots.

Paul Kariya whipped a pass to Selanne, who scored the Ducks’ 14th power play goal in their last nine games. Travis Green then beat Roy to the right for a 2-1 lead in the second period.

“That second goal made me mad,” Roy said. “I should have had it.”

It was a typical Roy performance. He wandered from the net often, and almost got burned a couple of times.

He was hit with a high-sticking penalty in the second period, after he whacked Kariya in the face. Roy compounded that by complaining to the referee and tossing his stick in the air, and was given an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty--giving him 20 penalty minutes, tops among goalies this season.

“We had to do whatever we could to win,” Roy said. “We knew we were going into a tough place to play. We haven’t had too much luck here.”

The penalties gave the Ducks a four-minute power play. Roy turned them away and the double-minor seemed to put some life into the Avalanche.

“That was a big chance for us to capitalize,” Duck left wing Marty McInnis said. “We had a couple shots in front and didn’t score. Then they came down and scored.”

Roy had a good view of it from the bench. He was replaced by Billington and watched for 2:18. He sat just long enough for Milan Hejduk to score for a 3-2 Colorado lead.

It was the Avalanche’s first power-play goal in 27 chances, covering three-plus games.

“I looked around and our defensemen looked exhausted,” said Avalanche Coach Bob Hartley, who called timeout to change goalies, buying his power-play unit time to catch its breath while Billington put on the gear. “That’s a loophole in the rules to get some rest for your players.”

Roy returned to close it out.

“Now we just have to come back [tonight] against them,” Roy said.