LDN - Sports

Avs top 'Canes in OT to snap 5-game skid

[February 18, 2017] RALEIGH, N.C. -- With by far the NHL's worst record, the Colorado Avalanche have had few bright spots this season. Overtime has been one of them.

Mikko Rantanen scored with 36.4 seconds left in overtime as the Avalanche snapped their five-game losing streak with a 2-1 victory over the Carolina Hurricanes on Friday night.

Colorado (16-38-2) improved to 6-1 this season in overtime.

"We've got some really fast players with a lot of skill," said Colorado goalie Calvin Pickard. "I feel confident going out there in overtime that we're going to get it done. We kind of let the skill take over again."

Rantanen scored his 12th goal of the season, taking a feed on a 2-on-1 rush from Matt Duchene, beating Hurricanes goaltender Cam Ward with a one-timer and snapping the Avalanche's six-game skid at PNC Arena dating to February 2009.

"We had one of our better games of the year and we got rewarded," Duchene said. "With a lefty, it's a one-timer. You've got to know who you're with. I know (Mikko) likes to one-time pucks from the top of the circle on opportunities like that, and I was just able to get the D-man to flip his stick a little bit and freeze the goalie with a fake and then slide it over."

The Avalanche were 0-10-1 on the road in their last 11, having last won away from home at Chicago on Dec. 23. And Colorado had been outscored 18-6 during its previous four games of an East Coast losing skid.

"It feels good to fly home after finishing it off the right way," said Gabriel Landeskog. "We know the first four games of the road trip were unacceptable and there is no excuse for why we can't play like this all the time."

"Wins are hard to come by right now for us being at the bottom of the standings, but I felt like we earned it tonight," added Pickard. "Right from the start we were generating a lot of chances and we jumped on them early. It was a great goal to end it in overtime."

Colorado failed to score in overtime after starting off with a two-minute power play when Carolina defenseman Justin Faulk was called for tripping at the end of regulation. But the Avalanche held the Hurricanes without a shot in OT and capitalized late on its lone odd-man rush.

Defenseman Tyson Barrie opened the scoring with his fourth goal of the season for the Avalanche before Hurricanes forward Jeff Skinner scored his team-leading 19th. Both regulation goals came in the first period.

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The Hurricanes (24-23-7), opening a five-game homestand, are seven points out of a playoff spot in the Eastern Conference and are 16-3-2 in their last 21 home games. But they couldn't solve Colorado coming out the NHL's mandatory five-day break. Teams are now 3-9-1 in their first game after their break.

"Coming out of four days off this is what it looks like," said Carolina coach Bill Peters. "This isn't a surprise to anybody. We didn't skate, we didn't move the puck, we didn't execute. Everything was in our feet; guys were falling and slipping and sliding. There was no timing.

"(The timing) goes away quick; it goes away before four days I can tell you that."

Colorado won for just the third time in the last 17 games.

Colorado scored the first goal for just the 18th time this season with Barrie, who came into the game an NHL-worst minus-26, beating Ward with 6:12 left in a first period dominated by the Avalanche. John Mitchell's assist was his first in 48 games dating to last season. Jarome Iginla also picked up an assist on the play, just his ninth this season.

But Carolina was able to even the score with less than minute left in the opening period with Skinner scoring from the bottom of the left circle as his sharp angle shot deflected off the stick of Colorado defenseman Nikita Zadorov and past Pickard, who stopped 28 shots.

Ward stopped 35 in the losing effort.

NOTES: Carolina has played the fewest games in the NHL at 54. ... After starting the season 9-9, Colorado has had six different losing streaks of four games or more. ... Hurricanes G Cam Ward is now three starts shy of 600. ... Carolina has just 106 man-games lost this season. ... Colorado RW Jarome Iginla moved within 10 games played of 13th best all-time, a spot currently held by Johnny Bucyk at 1,540. ... Iginla is also gunning for his 12th season of playing in all games -- the best mark in NHL history. ... Avalanche C Matt Duchene came into the game with the best faceoff percentage (62.5 percent) in the league and won 18 of 24 Friday.

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