San Jose vs. Colorado 3:3
Forsberg shakes things up with OT goal
SAN JOSE, Calif. (AP) -- First an earthquake, then the Avalanche.
Peter Forsberg's goal 2:47 into overtime gave Colorado a 2-1 victory over the San Jose Sharks on Monday night and sent the Western Conference semifinal playoff series back to Denver for a deciding Game 7.
The game was marked by a substantial earthquake that had a preliminary magnitude of 5.2 and shook the arena with about nine minutes left in the third period.
The sellout crowd of 17,146 was unruffled, apparently more interested in the tight game on the ice, and play continued uninterrupted.
"I heard about it, but I didn't see it," Forsberg said about the quake. "The puck is bouncing anyway."
Forsberg took a pass from Joe Sakic and beat Sharks goalie Evgeni Nabokov from right in front of the crease. It was Forsberg's sixth goal of the playoffs.
"Joe made a great move," Forsberg said. "I don't know how he saw me, but he got the puck to me."
The defending Stanley Cup champion Avalanche were on the verge of elimination by the Sharks, who have never been to the Western Conference finals. The series is tied 3-3.
Patrick Roy, who has struggled during the series, stopped 21 San Jose shots. He has allowed a surprising 18 goals during the series against the Sharks. But since 1996, Roy has rebounded well after allowing five or more goals in a playoff game. He's 9-0 with three shutouts, and Colorado has outscored opponents 45-8.
Nabokov stopped 27 shots.
"I think it was obvious, both goaltenders played extremely well," San Jose veteran winder Adam Graves said. "It could have gone either way."
Game 7 will be played Wednesday night at the Pepsi Center.
"Hey, it was a 20-man effort tonight and the reason we are going to play for all the marbles in Game 7," Colorado coach Bob Hartley said.
Colorado dropped Game 5 in Denver on Saturday, when the Sharks scored three times in the final 20 minutes for a 5-3 victory and a chance to eliminate the Avalanche on home ice.
But the Avalanche have been through this before. In the Stanley Cup finals against the New Jersey Devils last year, Colorado lost Game 5 at home to trail 3-2 in the series. The Avalanche rebounded with a shutout of the Devils before winning the Stanley Cup at home.
"This was a huge win for us. We've been in this situation before, and when we face elimination we play very well," Colorado forward Milan Hejduk said. "And now we've done it again, so we have a lot of confidence."
Defense was dominant on both sides throughout.
With Adam Foote in the box for tripping Scott Thornton, the Sharks peppered Roy with shots. Forward Mike Ricci charged into a crowd of Avalanche players to get to a loose puck -- somersaulting over the group -- but Roy stopped the shot.
Nabokov deftly deflected Sakic's hard shot from the right circle with just less than four minutes left in the period. Sakic has given the Sharks trouble throughout the series, with three goals in the past two games and 10 points overall.
Colorado went on a power play at 10:59 in the second period when Vincent Damphousse was penalized for slashing, but they were unable to get past Nabokov.
With just less than six minutes to go, San Jose defenseman Marcus Ragnarsson looked surprised when his hard shot from the left circle got past Roy. It was Ragnarsson's first goal in 40 playoff appearances.
But 24 seconds later, Steven Reinprecht took the puck, circled around the net and beat Nabokov from the right side to even it at 1-all.
Both teams had their chances in the tense third period.
Damphousse and Sharks captain Owen Nolan skated in on Roy alone, but Damphousse's shot went just wide of the goal. On the other side, Rob Blake's shot dribbled across the crease past Nabokov, but defenseman Scott Hannan skated in to make a spectacular save.
The earthquake, which was centered near Gilroy, south of San Jose, hit later in the third and shook the rafters of the arena.
Game notes
Oakland Raiders receiver Jerry Rice was at the game. ... The Sharks' home-ice advantage doesn't mean too much for Colorado, which had won seven of its last eight games in the Shark Tank. ... The Sharks fall to 5-1 in the playoffs when they score first.
Montreal vs. Carolina 2:4
Cole starts Carolina's onslaught with two quick goals
MONTREAL (AP) -- Carolina didn't want to play a seventh game against the Montreal Canadiens. The BBC line made sure that didn't happen.
Rookie Erik Cole, the "C" in Carolina's high-scoring line that also includes Rod Brind'Amour and Bates Battaglia, scored twice in the first 3:33 Monday night as the Hurricanes blitzed Montreal for five first-period goals and breezed to an 8-2 victory to win their best-of-seven Stanley Cup playoff series in six games.
"We said that we wanted to come out and try to get the momentum right away and take the crowd out of the game, but we never expected it to be like that," Cole said afterward in the calm of the Carolina dressing room. "It's just what's been going on the last couple of games, where we're fortunate to get the bounces."
It was the first victory in six playoff meetings against the Canadiens for the franchise, which entered the NHL in 1979 as the Hartford Whalers and moved to North Carolina five years ago. Montreal won two Game 7s of those series with overtime goals.
"I think we've taken steps every year," said Carolina captain Ron Francis, who was Hartford's first choice in the 1981 NHL draft and is in his second stint with the club. "This year we've taken some big steps, there's no question. This is the best and deepest team we've had."
And because of that, the Hurricanes have gone deeper in the playoffs than the franchise has ever been. Carolina will make the franchise's first appearance in the conference finals, against either Toronto or Ottawa. That series is tied 3-3, with the seventh game Tuesday night in Toronto.
"For me, it's the first time in my career, so it's certainly nice to be on the winning end against these guys," said Francis, whose assist on Battaglia's second-period goal gave him a team-record 32 career playoff points, one more than the franchise record formerly held by Kevin Dineen. "It's good for the guys in the locker room. These guys have come a long way."
So, too, have the Canadiens, who were upbeat despite the humbling defeat. They renewed Montreal's hope in them by winning seven in a row in the final three weeks of the season to make the playoffs for the first time in three years. The Canadiens also stunned the Boston Bruins, the top team in the East, in the first round of the playoffs.
"It's just too bad because this team has battled all year," said Canadiens captain Saku Koivu, who sat out all but three games of the regular season while battling stomach cancer but scored 10 points in the playoffs. "We're all disappointed, we hate to lose. But these last two games didn't show what we were all about this year. Everybody said we wouldn't even make the playoffs."
Carolina expected the Canadiens to storm out in the first period with the raucous capacity crowd of more than 21,000 shaking the Molson Centre with their cheers. But any hope the Canadiens might rally to force a Game 7 was quickly dashed by the enthusiastic rookie from Oswego, N.Y., who scored twice before Montreal took its first shot.
Cole scored his first goal -- and fifth of the playoffs -- just 25 seconds in, easily beating Montreal goalie Jose Theodore after the netminder deflected Brind'Amour's goalmouth pass, but was unable to control it in the crease.
Cole made it 2-0 at 3:33, again from right in front, this time off a setup by Battaglia after Theodore and Montreal defenseman Patrice Brisebois misplayed the puck.
Montreal had no answer for the BBC line all series. The trio combined to score 11 of Carolina's 21 goals in the series and finished Game 6 with three goals and six assists.
Sean Hill made it 3-0 at 7:55 on a Carolina power play -- with an assist from Montreal's Chad Kilger. The big winger, who was cruising in the slot, deflected Hill's cross-ice pass for Brind'Amour, and it caromed through the skates of defenseman Stephane Quintal past a startled Theodore.
"They got a couple of lucky bounces, and you looked up at the board and it was 3-0," said Theodore, who was replaced by Stephane Fiset after the first period and returned for the final 1:39 of the game to a huge ovation from the remaining fans. "It's hard to come back from that. When they made that comeback (in Game 4), they showed us they were a good team."
Josef Vasicek made it 4-0 with just more than five minutes left in the period.
Many of the hometown fans streamed for the exits after Kevyn Adams deked past Rivet and scored at 18:15 to make it 5-0.
It marked the first time the Canadiens allowed five goals in a period in the playoffs since the Whalers did it at home on April 10, 1988, in a 7-5 victory.
Quintal finally scored for the Canadiens with 11 seconds remaining in the period off a goalmouth feed from Yanic Perreault, who sat out Game 5 with a stomach virus.
Game notes
Battaglia leads Carolina with 13 playoff points. ... The Hurricanes tied the mark for the most goals Montreal has allowed in the Stanley Cup playoffs. Chicago beat them 8-7 in Game 5 of the 1973 finals. ... Montreal's most lopsided playoff defeat was 7-0 at Seattle in 1919.
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Mats
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