The Avalanche that has been sweeping through the Western Conference of the NHL rolled into the United Center Sunday night and all but buried the Blackhawks.
With Joe Sakic getting two goals and three assists, Colorado stormed to its eighth straight victory 7-3 despite a 12-second Hawks blitz in the final period that produced goals by Eric Daze and Brent Grieve.
Joe Murphy had the first Hawks goal, but the Avalanche, which has scored at least five goals in each of its last five games, responded with four consecutive goals to break a 1-1 tie.
Claude Lemieux’s power-play goal gave the Avalanche a 1-0 lead at 8 minutes 10 seconds of the opening period. The hero of last year’s Stanley Cup playoffs was camped at the left of Jeff Hackett’s goal when Martin Rucinsky angled a pass across the goal mouth and onto Lemieux’s stick.
The goal was Lemieux’s seventh in the last five games, one more than he scored all of last season when he was with the New Jersey Devils. It also was the fifth straight game in which he scored a goal. Peter Forsberg also drew an assist on the play, the 12th in the last six games for Colorado’s top scorer.
The Hawks tied it when their somnolent power play came to life on the first opportunity. Sakic was in the penalty box for hooking when Murphy scored at the 11:28 mark.
Murphy started the play by heading the puck up to Bernie Nicholls, who took it behind the goal line and sent it back out in front. Murphy muscled the puck past Stephane Fiset one-handed for his third goal of the year. It ended a streak of 19 consecutive power-play failures for the Hawks.
The Hawks had a chance to go ahead on an excellent shift by the Grieve-Denis Savard-Daze line, but Fiset made his three best saves of the period then.
Grieve had a semibreakaway on the left side when he put a hard angled shot on net. Daze picked up the rebound and skated into the slot, where he was rejected by Fiset. The next time down the ice, Daze used his long reach to control the puck and skate in on Fiset, but again he was turned back.
The Avalanche went back in front 2-1 at the 14:16 mark when Sakic’s feed from behind the goal line found Chris Simon steaming down the slot to beat a helpless Hackett.
A two-goal blizzard in a 15-second span broke it open in the second period. The first came when the Hawks appeared distracted in front of their net as the puck squirted free. A sprawling Forsberg sent it past Hackett after it appeared the puck bounced off Murphy.
After the next faceoff, Simon dug the puck off the boards behind Hackett’s net and sent it out to Sakic in the slot to make it 4-1. Jeremy Roenick tried to inject some passion into the Hawks with a vicious hit on Colorado’s Stephane Yelle at 12:11. It appeared to work for a while, even though Roenick drew a minor penalty on the play.
But the adrenaline surge soon wore off and when Tony Amonte was sent off with just 54 seconds left in the second period. It took Colorado just eight seconds to make it 5-1.
Sakic took the puck away from Chris Chelios and, on a two-on-none break, easily beat Hackett at 19:14. The Hawks were outshot 14-1 in the period and roundly booed when it ended.
