Avalanche Doesn’t Require Top Guns to Take Series Lead

No Theo Fleury. No Milan Hejduk.

No problem.

Even without two of its top scorers, the Colorado Avalanche scored its most goals of the postseason in beating the Dallas Stars, 7-5, Sunday, putting Colorado within a victory of the Stanley Cup finals.

The Avalanche leads the Western Conference finals, 3-2, and has two chances to eliminate the Stars beginning with Game 6 Tuesday night in Denver. If a seventh game is needed, it will be Friday night in Dallas.

“This gives us some momentum, but the next game is the most important--it’s in our building with a chance to put them away,” said rookie Chris Drury, who had his second game-winning goal in two games.

Fleury, Colorado’s second-leading scorer, had flu and could be back Tuesday night. The Avalanche won’t get back Hejduk, its fifth-best scorer, as he broke his collarbone Friday night.

The Stars couldn’t take advantage of their absence, and they didn’t do much with leads of 2-1 or 3-2. Dallas did score twice within 1:15 in the third period to tie the score at 5-5, but again it slipped away.

Drury knocked in a rebound with 6:44 to play two minutes later to make the score 6-5. Peter Forsberg scored into an empty net with 33.9 seconds left to give the Avalanche seven goals for the first time in 17 playoff games.

Drury’s goal was his fourth game-winner of the playoffs, tying an NHL rookie record.

“We all needed to pick it up and do something extra,” said Forsberg, who also had two assists to boost his playoff-leading point total to 23. “A lot of guys chipped in. Chris made a couple of great plays.”

Playing 38 hours after Drury’s overtime goal in Game 4 tied the series, Colorado forced Dallas to play an up-tempo game. The result was wave after wave of odd-man rushes against Dallas goaltender Ed Belfour.

“We got away from our game a little bit,” Dallas captain Derian Hatcher said. “It was a run-and-gun game and we fell into it.”

Belfour, playing in his 100th playoff game, gave up two goals in each period. He had only had four two-goal periods in his previous 72 periods this postseason.

“You leave them in the open ice like that, they can make some plays and dominate a game,” Dallas’ Mike Modano said.

The Stars’ biggest push came after Valeri Kamensky’s second goal gave the Avalanche a 5-3 lead with 13:34 left.

A goal by Mike Keane that was waved off because he kicked the puck into the Avalanche net got Dallas’ 17,001 fans going. They erupted again when Brett Hull fired the puck past Patrick Roy to make the score 5-4, and 1:15 later Roy kicked in a wraparound by Pat Verbeek to tie the score with 9:03 left.

The Stars had turned third-period deficits into victories five times this postseason, but they couldn’t do it this time.

“It was one of those games where you claw your way back, then--boom--the puck is in the net again,” Dallas defenseman Shawn Chambers said.

Kamensky scored twice and had an assist. Adam Deadmarsh and Sandis Ozolinsh each had a goal and an assist. Joe Sakic had three assists and Dale Hunter and Aaron Miller each had one assist.