Avalanche Pushes Red Wings to Edge

A year ago, Colorado eliminated the Detroit Red Wings from the NHL playoffs in six games. It might not take the Avalanche that long this time.

Chris Drury’s goal at 10:21 of overtime lifted Colorado to a 3-2 victory Wednesday night and gave the Avalanche a commanding 3-1 lead over the Red Wings in the Western Conference semifinal series.

“I thought we battled hard,” Detroit forward Doug Brown said. “But, sometimes the puck goes the other way.”

In this case, it went the other way after Detroit defenseman Steve Duchesne got caught out of position. Duchesne followed Red Wing forward Steve Yzerman into the offensive zone. When the puck ended up on a Colorado player’s stick, Duchesne couldn’t get back, leaving Chris Chelios all alone to defend a three-man rush.

It was no contest.

Drury snapped his third goal of the playoffs past Detroit goalie Chris Osgood from the slot after nice passes from Peter Forsberg and Adam Deadmarsh.

Jon Klemm and Dave Andreychuk also scored for the Avalanche, which returns home for Friday’s Game 5 of the best-of-seven series. A sixth game, if needed, would be Sunday in Detroit.

“I think we’ve got to look at the next game like a Game 7,” Drury said. “We don’t want to come back here. We want to finish them off.”

Vyacheslav Kozlov and Tomas Holmstrom scored for the Red Wings, who have been eliminated from the playoffs the last three times they have fallen behind 2-0. Colorado won the opening two games of the series at home.

Only once has Detroit Coach Scotty Bowman guided a team through a 2-0 deficit to win a series. That was in 1992 when he coached Pittsburgh past Washington.

“You just go in and think of the next game,” Bowman said. “You can’t think beyond the next game. It’s not like we’re getting whipped or there’s a big edge either way. We’re capable of winning the next game. That’s how I look at it.”

The Avalanche didn’t appear to miss star defenseman Ray Bourque, who sprained his left knee Monday night and sat out this game.

Kozlov, on his 28th birthday, gave Detroit a 2-1 lead at 9:12 of the third period while Deadmarsh was off for high-sticking Pat Verbeek.

But Colorado tied it, 2-2, with 4:27 remaining when Osgood, trying to clear Andreychuk’s shot, scooped the puck into the net.

Klemm’s first playoff goal gave the Avalanche a 1-0 lead at 3:37 of the second.