Things were looking good for the Avalanche Thursday night after grabbing a 2-0 lead in the second period, not so good when Phoenix's Antoine Vermette scored a power-play goal with 5:54 left in the third to put the Coyotes ahead 3-2.
"It would have been easy to feel sorry for ourselves when they took the lead," Avalanche coach Patrick Roy said.
That didn't happen because the Avalanche tied matters on Cody McLeod's second goal in the past two games with 3:14 to play and pulled out a 4-3 overtime win when Ryan O'Reilly scored on a power play with 41.1 seconds remaining.
It was the Avalanche's second win in a row, both against Western Conference teams, following a three-game losing streak that prompted some folks to wonder if the wheels were beginning to fall off. The Avalanche has gone 16-5-0 overall and will take a 7-2-0 road record into Saturday's game in Los Angeles.
"Definitely that was a character win for us," said O'Reilly, who beat goalie Mike Smith with a shot from the right circle after taking a return pass from PA Parenteau. "Four-on-three you have to be creative, create your opportunities. It was a low blocker shot and fortunately it went in. It's unfortunate that we gave up two goals in the third, which you never want to do, but we stuck with it. We kept the pressure on and McLeod made a big goal to tie it."
McLeod was moved from the fourth line to the third with John Mitchell and Max Talbot for the second game in a row because Roy has been forced to shuffle players around after losing Matt Duchene and Alex Tanguay to injuries.
McLeod is a hard-hitting left wing and willing to drop the gloves at any time, but he's a better all-around player than most people give him credit for. He kills penalties, wears an 'A' on his jersey because he's a team leader, and he's scored goals when given the chance. McLeod had 15 goals in 2008-09 and eight last year in the lockout-shortened 48-game season.
McLeod skated from the left boards to the front of the net, where he fended off a Coyotes defender and had his back to the net when he swept the rebound of defenseman Andre Benoit's shot behind Smith.
"This is not an easy team to play against," Roy said of the Coyotes, who are 14-4-4 overall and 9-0-2 at home. "This is a very good team, probably one of the best in the NHL. I thought our guys did a good job coming here and winning that hockey game. Our guys were resilient again. We found a way to score that tying goal. In overtime we took advantage of our power play."
The Avalanche had two power plays in overtime. The first one started with 27.3 seconds left in the third period when Martin Hanzal went off for charging against Benoit. It carried into overtime and the Coyotes killed it off, but they couldn't hold off the Avalanche after Keith Yandle slashed Tyson Barrie on the hand with 1:35 to go.
The Avalanche caught a break at 5:11 of the third period when a goal by Phoenix's Oliver Ekman-Larsson that would have tied the game 2-2 was waved off when David Moss collided with goalie Semyon Varlamov and knocked him down.
Even so, the Avalanche needed a big game from Varlamov, who shook off Michael Stone's goal -- his shot came from the neutral zone -- that came with 2:50 left in the second period. He finished with 41 saves. The Coyotes outshot the Avalanche 44-27.
"Varly has been our best player all season, phenomenal," O'Reilly said. "It's nice to get that one for him."
The Avalanche grabbed its 2-0 lead after a scoreless first period in which the Coyotes enjoyed a 15-8 advantage in shots. Mitchell scored a power-play goal at the 32-second mark and Benoit, who earlier was cut on the chin when hit with a puck, scored from the top of the circles with 4:10 remaining.
Stone's goal gave the Coyotes life. They outshot the Avalanche 14-6 in the third period and went ahead on goals by Hanzal at 10:40 and Vermette, who scored from the slot area after Yandle's shot caromed off the end boards.
"They were solid in the third," Roy said. "They were faster than us on the puck, they were jumping on those loose pucks. But you know what? We found a way to win."
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The Coyotes' 44 shots were the most allowed by the Avalanche this season. Colorado has been outshot 10 times and managed to win nine of those games, but Roy said this is an area he wants to look at.
"I think we're giving a little too many shots," he said. "I'm curious to see where they're coming from. If it's coming from the outside or the blue line, this is a very active 'D.' I thought they had a lot of shots on net. I'm going to have to take some time with the coaching staff to look at them and try to reduce, hopefully, the number of shots.
"But when you're playing against one of the best teams in the league, it's not the number of shots that you're going to give, it's the win, and you could care less about how many you're going to give."
Coyotes defensemen had 15 shots, led by the five launched by Stone. Three forwards -- Hanzal, Radim Vrbata and Tim Kennedy -- combined for 16 shots.
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Benoit's goal was his first for the Avalanche and he added two assists. He has 10 assists and 11 points in 19 games, having missed last Saturday's 4-1 loss to Florida because of a sore wrist. Benoit blocked three shots Thursday and played 18:37.
Barrie didn't collect a point in his second game since being recalled from Lake Erie of the AHL, but he was solid. He had two shots and was plus-1 in 20:29 of ice time. He took one for the team when he got slashed in overtime to set up the winning power-play goal.
The Avalanche had a tough time on faceoffs for the second game in a row without Duchene. The Coyotes won 38 of 67 draws (57 percent) Thursday after the Blackhawks won 30 of 51 (59 percent) Tuesday. Faceoffs have been a bit of a problem since the season started.
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FYI: Here's a Jan Hejda story I did for NHL.com earlier this week.