The losing streak is over, but there's still a long way to go for the Avalanche, whose hopes of making the playoffs remain slim. The goal is to somehow reach 95 points -- that might not even be enough -- and there are only 26 games left.
The Avalanche did play a solid all-around game Saturday in beating an injury-riddled and weary Dallas Stars team 4-1 at the Pepsi Center. The Stars played the night before and lost three regular forwards to injury in that game, including star center Tyler Seguin to a knee injury that will sideline him 3-6 weeks.
"It's a start," said Jarome Iginla, who was credited with his team-leading 18th goal in the third period when Brad Stuart's shot hit his leg and sailed past backup goalie Jhonas Enroth, who made his Stars debut two days after being traded from Buffalo. "We know we need to put a real string together here and before we can do that we had to get back on the winning side. It was a good game for us, guys played well, guys played hard and we did a lot of things we wanted to do.
"We got 30 shots, kept them lower (25, 15 through the first two periods). I'm sure we had more (offensive) zone time. There were some nice plays too, which was nice to make that work with the creativity and kind of build on that.…
Iginla, who has five goals and three assists in the past nine games, is tied with Alex Tanguay for the team scoring lead with 38 points. The goal was the 578th of his NHL career, moving him past Mark Recchi into sole possession of 19th place on the all-time list. Jari Kurri is next with 601. Iginla tied Vincent Damphousse for 45th place with his 1,205th point.
The Avalanche only had one power play and, naturally, didn't convert, running their streak to 32 in a row in 11 games without a goal. But they did manage to score four "greasy" goals, the kind that have come so infrequently this season.
Gabriel Landeskog was in front of the net when he deflected in a shot by Nathan MacKinnon, who was originally credited with the goal; Tanguay knocked a loose puck into a half-open net after Dennis Everberg kept the puck alive in front after Enroth made a save against Nate Guenin; there was the Iginla goal, which was scored after Stuart had a frightening collision with Nick Holden; and Everberg had a tap-in from the edge of the crease in the final seconds.
It was the 11th time the Avalanche scored as many as four goals in regulation or overtime.
"That's what we need to continue to do, to go to the net," coach Patrick Roy said. "It doesn't have to be flashy all the time or perfect all the time. You look around the NHL, I was watching some games before our game and I saw a lot of goals like this.
"I really hope that we're going to build around this one. We're going to have to be ready for Arizona (on Monday). We're going to have to have a solid game, we're going to have to play the same way, with the same urgency. I'm going to the next step, meaning I want to see consistency. I want to see us work with that urgency throughout 60 minutes, night after night."
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Stuart managed to return to the game after hitting the ice in the collision with Holden, which happened right after he shot the puck. He played 21:23 and blocked two shots.
"It was a pretty big collision," he said. "I went to shoot the puck and I just felt like I got run over by a train. Luckily I was able to shake it off. My ribs are a little sore, but other than that I feel pretty lucky."
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Everberg played right wing on a line with Tanguay and John Mitchell. The 6-foot-4, 205-pound rookie had the first multi-point game of his brief NHL career with a goal and an assist, had three shots and two hits.
"He's a big guy," Roy said. "When he has net presence it helps us a lot. It was great for Tanguay to score that rebound, but (Everberg) did a super job in front of the net. He's finishing his checks. I think it's a good mix for us. He's a good skater and he's capable of playing on the penalty killing."
Roy was hoping to get balanced scoring when he changed lines again, and the Avalanche got a goal from three lines. Max Talbot replaced Tanguay with Matt Duchene and Iginla. The Landeskog-Ryan O'Reilly-MacKinnon line was intact, and Paul Carey replaced Daniel Briere (scratched) on the fourth line with Cody McLeod and Marc-Andre Cliche, who returned after being scratched Thursday against the Rangers.
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McLeod racked up a career-high 30 penalty minutes. He fought Curtis McKenzie in the first period and was assessed another fighting major, 10-minute misconduct and game misconduct early in the third following a hit against defenseman Jason Demers behind the Avalanche net.
A scrum ensued behind the net and resumed in front of the benches after Demers left a trail of blood while skating back. Demers wound up with a roughing minor and 10-minute misconduct.
"There was a scrum behind the net, I went back to the bench for a change after things cleared out of there," McLeod said after the game. "I was standing there and got hit in the back of the head. I don’t know why they kicked me out of the game, but that was the call."
Said Roy: "Apparently (Demers) already had some stitches and I guess when (McLeod) hit him, they really opened up. From my side it didn't appear like a big thing. I was surprised to see the blood coming out of his mouth."