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 Pickard made 27 saves for his first career shutout, and the Colorado
Avalanche beat the New Jersey Devils 3-0 on Thursday night.
Centers Matt Duchene and Carl Soderberg and defenseman Tyson Barrie
scored for Colorado (22-20-3), which gained two valuable points in
the tight Western Conference playoff race.
Pickard got his first shutout after a couple of near misses last
season while playing sporadically for Colorado. He stopped 14 shots
in the third period to get the milestone win.
"It feels nice," he said. "Last year I came close a few times on the
road but to actually get it here at home in front of our fans is
pretty special. It was a full team effort. Everybody really earned
that shutout."
Goalie Cory Schneider had 23 saves for the Devils, who have lost
five of six. They can finish 2-2 on the current road trip with a win
in Arizona on Saturday.
New Jersey (21-19-5) played just 11 forwards because of the absence
of right winger Jordin Tootoo and left winger Bobby Farnham. Tootoo
suffered a head injury in Tuesday's loss at St. Louis and Farnham is
serving a four-game suspension.
"We don't know who is going to be back and it doesn't really matter
now because these are the guys we have and it's going to be up to us
to find a way out," Schneider said. "You can't look to the guy next
to you or someone else outside of the team right now to kind of get
us out of this."
Colorado coach Patrick Roy shook up his defensive corps after
Tuesday's 4-0 loss to Tampa Bay.
He recalled a pair of 20-year-olds Nikita Zadorov and Chris Bigras
and waived Nate Guenin. The two rookies didn't register a point but
the team seemed to get the message with a better defensive effort.
"We needed that game," he said. "I really liked the energy at the
beginning of the game. We were quick on those pucks. Midway of the
third we gave up only 14 shots. It was a good game."
Duchene gave Colorado a 1-0 lead just 51 seconds into the game. Left
winger Gabriel Landeskog stole the puck near center ice, defenseman
Nick Holden picked it up and passed it to Duchene streaking down the
middle. He put the puck high to the stick side of Schneider for the
fastest goal to start a game for Colorado this season.
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It was Duchene's 22nd of the year. He had 21 in 82 games last
season.
"I'm not thinking about last year because it wasn't a good year
statistically for me," Duchene said. "It's nice to get 20 but my job
is to score and provide offense. I thought our line played really
well tonight and generated a lot of stuff."
Barrie made it 2-0 with a short-handed goal at 7:55 of the second
when he poked in center Nathan MacKinnon's rebound. It was his
eighth of the season.
"You play against a team like this, you don't want to give them
those rush plays," New Jersey coach John Hynes said. "We gave them
quite a few early. Only scored on one of them, but early in the
first we weren't really where we needed to be."
Schneider came off for an extra skater with 2:36 remaining and
Soderberg scored into the empty net at 19:32.
NOTES: New Jersey LW Bobby Farnham served the first of his four-game
suspension Thursday night. Farnham was suspended for his hit against
St. Louis LW Dmitrij Jaskin on Tuesday. ... New Jersey RW Jordin
Tootoo was fined $2,000 by the NHL for a violation of the
diving-embellishment rule. Tootoo was cited for a violation in the
third period of a game against Detroit. He was fined because it was
his second offense of the season. ... Avalanche D Chris Bigras made
his NHL debut Thursday. Bigras was recalled along with fellow D
Nikita Zadorov on Wednesday. In corresponding moves, D Erik Johnson
(knee) was placed on IR retroactive to Jan. 4 and D Nate Guenin was
placed on waivers. ... Devils LW Tuomo Ruutu returned to the lineup
after missing three games with a lower-body injury. ... Colorado C
Chris Wagner centered the third line after being a healthy scratch
for 14 games. C Mikhail Grigorenko and D Andrew Bodnarchuk were
scratched.
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