Calgary 4 Colorado 2
CALGARY — Rene Bourque scored twice and Miikka Kiprusoff made 34 saves Wednesday night to lead the Calgary Flames in a 4-2 victory over the Colorado Avalanche.
Roman Horak scored his first NHL goal and added an assist for Calgary (3-4-1), while Lee Stempniak scored his first goal as a Flame in the second period.
Kyle Quincey and Ryan Wilson scored for Colorado (6-3-0), which snapped a six-game road winning streak.
The Avs were one game short of the franchise-record for consecutive road wins.
Horak tied the game 1-1 at 13:48 of the first period with a highlight reel goal. He fended off the backcheck of Chuck Kobasew and then, while falling, tapped the puck out of the air and past goaltender Jean-Sebastien Giguere.
The goal ended a scoreless stretch of 122 minutes 55 seconds for the Flames, who were shutout 2-0 at home to Nashville on Saturday and entered the night having scored just four goals in its previous three games.
Stempniak scored at 4:31 into the second period when Giguere gave up a rebound and Avs defenceman Erik Johnson whiffed on his clearing attempt. Stempniak poked the loose puck into the net to give Calgary a 2-1 lead, with Horak getting the assist.
The Flames expanded their lead to 3-1 at 9:27 of the second with a power-play goal. Anton Babchuk’s shot bounced off Colorado defenceman Jan Hejda and went to the net where Bourque knocked it out of the air and past Giguere for his team-leading fourth goal.
Colorado dominated the third period, peppering Kiprusoff with 20 shots and eventually drawing to within one goal at 15:29 when Wilson knocked in a rebound.
Kiprusoff, celebrating his 35th birthday, had made consecutive superb stops off Milan Hejduk and Matt Duchene prior to giving up Wilson’s goal.
The Avalanche opened the scoring when Paul Stastny’s close-in chance rang off the post but caromed out the other side and onto the stick of Quincy who rapped it in.
Giguere finished with 31 saves on 34 shots.
Calgary improves to 2-1-1 through the first four games of its season-long six-game homestand.
The Avalanche now head home where they’ll play 14 of their next 18 games at the Pepsi Center.
Horak was the talk of the Flames training camp with coach Brent Sutter impressed with his two-way play. The 20-year-old was acquired from the New York Rangers in June for unsigned 2009 Flames first round draft pick Tim Erixon.
However, the young Czech entered the night with no shots and one assist in five games, having been a healthy scratch twice.
Notes: LW Curtis Glencross (lower body) did not play for Calgary. Inserted into the lineup as one of seven defencemen dressed was Anton Babchuk, who sat out five of the last six games. ... Colorado was playing its first game within its division. Last year, they were 7-16-1 against the Northwest. ... Calgary won five of the six meetings between the two teams last year. ... Stastny’s assist gives him 35 points (12 goals, 23 assists) against Calgary in 31 games, the most against any NHL team.