Flames 4 Avalanche 3
DENVER — Miikka Kiprusoff made 36 saves, Lee Stempniak had a goal and assist, and the Calgary Flames held on to beat the Colorado Avalanche 4-3 on Saturday night.
Jarome Iginla, Paul Byron and Curtis Glencross also scored for the Flames, who have beaten Colorado eight straight times and twice in six days.
Milan Hejduk had a goal and assist, and Matt Duchene and David Jones also scored for the Avalanche, which have lost six of eight home games this season.
Semyon Varlamov stopped 16 shots for Colorado.
The Avalanche haven’t beaten the Flames since Oct. 28, 2010, in the first meeting between the teams last season. Calgary won the final five matchups last season and the first three this season.
Colorado tried to rally at home for the second straight game. The Avalanche trailed the New York Islanders 3-0 on Thursday before winning 4-3 in overtime.
The task was too tough this time against Kiprusoff. The Avalanche fell behind 4-0 before finally getting a puck past him when Hejduk scored his seventh of the season with 6:44 left in the second period.
Duchene added his sixth goal 26 seconds into the third to cut the deficit to 4-2, and Jones made it a one-goal game when he scored off a deflection with 4:35 left.
Varlamov went off for an extra skater with 1:44 remaining, and Olli Jokinen was called for delay of game 10 seconds later to give Colorado a 6-on-4 advantage. Kiprusoff made four saves in the final 90 seconds, including a pad stop with 4.2 seconds to go.
The Flames continued their dominance of the Avalanche early. Byron scored his first of the season 2:06 in when he slipped past the defence, took a pass from Derek Smith and beat Varlamov.
A little more than three minutes later, Iginla made it 2-0 when defenceman Ryan Wilson’s clearing attempt went off Alex Tanguay’s leg and right to Iginla, who batted the puck past Varlamov.
Glencross made it 3-0 when he scored at 14:11 of the first, four seconds after Colorado killed off a penalty to Landeskog.
Stempniak scored on a backhand midway through the second period to push the lead to four goals.