Eurolanche

Avalanche Comeback Falls Just Short

The Stars' Colton Sceviour scored three goals, Jamie Benn added two and Dallas beat the Colorado Avalanche 5-3 in Colorado's final home preseason game Tuesday night at Pepsi Center.

Sceviour and Benn scored two goals apiece in the second period, with Sceviour's second goal at 9:44 giving the Stars a 4-0 lead and prompting Colorado to pull goalie Jean-Sebastian Giguere in favor of Sami Aittokallio.

Gabriel Landeskog answered for Colorado with 2:11 left in the middle period, and Brad Malone and Paul Stastny followed with goals in the third period to get the Avalanche within 4-3.

An empty-netter from Sceviour with 1:40 left gave Dallas its final score.

"I'm very happy with my captain," Colorado coach Patrick Roy said. "Landy played a really good game. He worked hard and was sharp. He and Paul played really well. Honestly, I can't say [anything] against our team, except for maybe 15 minutes into the second period, but overall we were resillient.I could sense there was no way they were going to give up in that game."

Colorado started strong out of the gate, putting up 10 shots on goal to the Stars' one at the end of the first period, but it had nothing to show for it in the scoring column.

"We had a really good start, but unfortunately for us, coming [in the first intermission] at 0-0 was probably the killer," Roy said, "but overall the guys played really well in that first period. We saw a lot of good things out there. We kept [Dallas] to one shot on goal in the first [period], and I thought that was great."

Goalie Kari Lehtonen stopped 26 shots for the Stars, including making multiple athletic saves in the third period as the Avs were charging.

Giguere stopped six shots before Roy made the switch to Aittokallio, who saved all 15 shots he faced.

"He's a veteran goalie, obviously he's had things like this before," Roy said of Giguere. "He's not alone. There are a few goals we could have done all a bit better. This is a team game, and I'm sure he'll bounce back.“

-- by Associated Press --