The Colorado Avalanche continued their season long five game road trip against the Montreal Canadiens, and their winning ways continued with their fourth straight victory -- the second shootout victory of the trip.
Chuck Kobasew started the scoring off early with a wrist shot less than five minutes into the game, his first goal in an Avalanche sweater. Canadiens forward Max Pacioretty tied the score midway through the first period, send the game into the second period tied at one goal apiece.
The second period was filled with scoring action, as Tomas Plekanec broke the early tie with a power play goal. David Jones added a power play goal midway through the period, and Paul Stastny added his first goal of the season with a beautiful unassisted goal less than a minute later, poke checking the puck at the blue line and skating through the Canadiens zone before burying the puck backhanded past Carey Price. Travis Moen and David Jones both added goals before the end of the period.
With Colorado up 4-3midway through the third period, Montreal struck back. Brian Gionta fired a beautiful backhanded rebound past Semyon Varlamov to tie the game, then a perfect pass from Pacioretty 20 seconds later hit David Desharnais on the tape of the stick, and he deflected the puck past Varlamov top shelf. It appeared that Montreal had the game in hand, but a beautiful play by Erik Johnson kept the puck in the zone on a power play allowed Milan Hejduk to cycle behind the net before finding Kyle Quincey for a one timer goal, his first of the season to force overtime.
Varlamov stopped both shots he faced in the shootout, and Matt Duchene buried his shot to seal the victory. Colorado has now won all four games of this road trip, and finish at Toronto on October 17.
Colorado won despite being outshot by Montreal by a 43-31 margin. Erik Johnson had his second straight two assist game. The Avalanche had their second multi-power play goal game after starting the season out 0-10 with the extra man advantage.