{coyotes} Avalanche build early lead, stifle Coyotes in win

Monday 16 February 2015

{coyotes} Avalanche build early lead, stifle Coyotes in win

DENVER -- The Colorado Avalanche continued their offensive revival with a 5-2 win against the Arizona Coyotes at Pepsi Center on Monday.

Matt Duchene had a goal and an assist, and Jarome Iginla and Zach Redmond each had two assists each for the Avalanche (24-22-11), who have scored 15 goals in the past four games.

The Avalanche set a franchise record by holding the Coyotes without a shot on goal in the second period.

After the Avalanche outshot the Coyotes 27-5 and took a 5-1 lead after 40 minutes, Colorado coach Patrick Roy replaced goalie Semyon Varlamov with Reto Berra, who made his first appearance since Dec. 5 against the Winnipeg Jets.

Varlamov has started 13 consecutive games and 21 of the past 22.

Mark Arcobello scored at 2:37 on Arizona's second shot of the period against Berra, who made 11 saves.

Coyotes goalie Mike McKenna, playing his first NHL game of the season, was under siege from the start and made 29 saves. The Coyotes (20-31-7) lost their fourth consecutive game.

The Avalanche outshot the Coyotes 15-5 in the first period and built a 3-1 lead on goals by Duchene, Cody McLeod and Nick Holden, whose power-play goal at 14:58 ended Colorado's 0-for-32 drought with the man advantage.

The Avalanche tied a franchise record for the fastest two goals when McLeod and Duchene scored nine seconds apart.

Colorado outshot Arizona 12-0 in the second period and got goals from Tyson Barrie and Gabriel Landeskog for a 5-1 lead.

Barrie moved into the lower portion of the right circle after Iginla skated down the opposite side and stopped near the goal line. He passed through the goalmouth to Barrie, who scored at 7:28.

Landeskog was outside the crease on the left side when he took Ryan O'Reilly's pass and beat McKenna high to the stick side at 17:18.

McLeod opened the scoring when he backhanded his own rebound past McKenna at 2:54 of the first period after Paul Carey took the original shot from the left point. The goal gave McLeod 100 NHL points in 524 career games.

Carey's assist was his first point in 17 NHL games.

Duchene skated to the net to convert a pass from Iginla at 3:03 to stretch his point-scoring streak to four games (two goals, four assists). Iginla has two goals and five assists in his past four games.

The Coyotes drew within 2-1 on a goal by defenseman Oliver Ekman-Larsson, who scored from the left point at 9:51. Ekman-Larsson leads NHL defensemen with 17 goals.

Holden increased the Avalanche lead to 3-1 at 14:58 after Arizona's Joe Vitale was penalized for delay of game at 14:40.

Duchene won a faceoff in the left circle and drew the puck back to Redmond, who slid it to Holden at the right point for a shot that beat McKenna to the short side. The assist was Duchene 300th career point.

Holden scored the Avalanche's previous power-play goal, Jan.15 against the Florida Panthers.