The Avalanche pulled out a 3-2 overtime win against Winnipeg on Monday at the Pepsi Center when Matt Duchene scored at 2:33 of the extra period but lost right wing PA Parenteau to a knee injury that likely will cause him to miss the remainder of the regular season.
Two days after losing center Paul Stastny to a back injury on his first shift Saturday against St. Louis, Parenteau hurt his right knee on his initial shift against the Jets.
"We'll see for playoffs, but he will be out for four to six weeks," Avalanche coach Patrick Roy said of Parenteau, who sustained an injury to his medial collateral ligament and wore a brace on his right leg after the game.
Parenteau attempted to come back for an early power play, but he wasn't able to skate well enough and left for good.
"He was in a lot of pain, but PA is a great team guy and he wanted to give it a try," Roy said. "He got the puck on the power play and he couldn't go back."
Parenteau missed 10 games because of an MCL injury to his left knee earlier this season. He has 14 goals and 19 assists in 53 games.
Stastny didn't dress, so the Avalanche finished the game with 10 forwards and seven defensemen. Roy said the Avalanche will call up forwards Paul Carey and Brad Malone from the Lake Erie Monsters of the American Hockey League.
"We showed a lot of character against a team that was playing very desperate," Roy said. "It's a tough team to play against. They gave us a hard time. Just don't try to feel sorry for yourselves, this is what I said to the guys. We have to remain positive. All year we battled through adversity and tonight was another example. Our guys never stopped working. We played most of the game with three lines. Everyone chipped in, everyone played hard. It was a hard-fought game, no doubt about it."
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Duchene scored his 21st goal of the season after skating from the left corner while being checked by Jets left wing Dustin Byfuglien, who scored both Jets goals. The puck came loose when Byfuglien tugged at Duchene's elbow, but Jets defenseman Tobias Enstrom poked it back to Duchene, who backhanded a shot over goalie Al Montoya.
"I beat him with a move out of the corner and I was taking it to the net," Duchene said. "I saw (Ryan) O'Reilly for what I was hoping was going to be an open net. (Byfuglien) got my elbow and the puck bounced off my stick. It bounced back to me and I took a whack at it. I didn't know it went in. I just heard the crowd cheering. Good bounce, nice to get that one."
The extra point enabled the third-place Avalanche (42-18-5, 89 points) to close within one point of second-place Chicago (38-13-14, 90 points) in the Central Division, and the Blackhawks visit the Pepsi Center on Wednesday.
"We're not out of the race for the division lead or No. 1 in the NHL," Duchene said. "We're right there. We just have to keep working hard here. I mean, that's a character win tonight. There's no other way to describe that. Guys just played their hearts out."
It was a physical game from the start. The Avalanche had six power plays and didn't score on any of them. Discipline was key for Colorado, which took one penalty and didn't kill if off. Byfuglien scored 23 seconds into the man advantage with Cory Sarich in the penalty box for holding, and he scored 1:48 later to give the Jets a 2-1 lead.
"I said to the guys we can't end up in the penalty box," Roy said. "We could not have retaliation penalties. We've been very disciplined and we certainly want to keep it that way."
Said John Mitchell: "Maybe they wanted to take advantage of the fact that we were down a couple of men. But we are a resilient team and we’re not going to back down.…
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Mitchell had a big game with a goal and an assist after moving from the third line to center a unit with Gabriel Landeskog and Nathan MacKinnon after Parenteau was injured. Jamie McGinn, who started with Landeskog and MacKinnon, switched to Parenteau's spot with O'Reilly and Duchene.
"When guys go down, it's an opportunity for a lot of guys to step up in the lineup and try and contribute and make things happen," Mitchell said. "I knew I would be given more of an offensive role and try and play hard and play strong. I'm happy with the effort I put forth and I'm really proud of all the guys in here. We stuck with it even though we were shorthanded."
Mitchell won a clean faceoff from Olli Jokinen as time was running down in the second period and got the puck back to Andre Benoit, who fired the puck behind Montoya with 11.2 seconds left to tie the game 2-2.
Mitchell was credited with a goal at 4:38 of the second period for a 1-0 lead when his pass to MacKinnon driving to the net went in off the stick of Jets defenseman Zach Bogosian.
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Avalanche goalie Semyon Varlamov had 33 saves for his 32nd win of the season. He made a glove save against Jim Slater on a first-period penalty shot and robbed Evander Kane, who used his speed to get by defenseman Jan Hejda before driving to the net. Varlamov stretched his left pad in time to keep the puck out.
Varlamov has stopped four of five penalty shots in his NHL career ... Duchene's overtime goal was the fourth of his career. He has four goals and eight assists in an eight game scoring streak. He played 24:36 ... O'Reilly logged 25:02 in ice time ... The Avalanche has gone 8-2 in overtime games this season ... Colorado is 0-for-11 on power plays in the past three games and has allowed a power-play goal in seven of the past nine games.