Fleury, Avalanche Come Alive

Theo Fleury had been just another skater during the Colorado Avalanche’s first four playoff games. Mysteriously, one of hockey’s most dangerous scorers wasn’t living up to his reputation.

That changed just in time for the Avalanche as Fleury scored twice and added an assist to lead Colorado to a 6-2 victory over the San Jose Sharks Saturday night.

The Avalanche has a 3-2 lead in the best-of-seven Western Conference playoff series. Game 6 is Monday night in San Jose.

“You maybe lose a little bit of confidence, and when you shoot, you don’t think it’s going to go in,” said Fleury, whose first goal sent him into a fist-pumping celebration. “When you’re on a roll, you know they’re going to go in. I got the first one, and then they just seemed to find the holes on the goalies.”

Claude Lemieux added a goal and three assists and Peter Forsberg scored short-handed for the Avalanche, which bounced back from an embarrassing 7-3 loss and ended a four-game home losing streak in the playoffs.

“Last night we were so embarrassed, we didn’t say a word to each other,” defenseman Adam Foote said. “We came out tonight with all this positive energy, and we made it work for us.”

The Sharks accomplished what they wanted in Denver--forcing the series back to California. But they gave themselves little chance Saturday, giving up a short-handed goal, two power-play goals and committing costly turnovers.

“We weren’t happy with our performance, but we came in and won two out of three and kept the series alive,” Shark forward Jeff Friesen said. “We take the series back to the Shark Tank and will go back to work.”

San Jose Coach Darryl Sutter subjected himself to the critics by starting Steve Shields in place of goaltender Mike Vernon, who had played well through the first four games.

Shields, 9-0-2 in his last 11 regular-season starts, finished with 29 saves.