Eurolanche

The Right Stef

Defensemen Jan Hejda, Stefan Elliott and Shane O'Brien delivered third-period goals before center Paul Stastny scored into an empty net in the Avalanche's 5-2 win against the Edmonton Oilers at the Pepsi Center.

O'Brien and Elliott, who made his NHL debut, scored 1:57 apart to give the Avalanche a 3-2 lead. Hejda found the back of goalie Devan Dubnyk's net with 3:40 to play after David Jones kept the puck alive in the Oilers end by outracing an Edmonton defender to negate a potential icing.

Elliott, summoned from Lake Erie in the American Hockey League when Erik Johnson was placed on injured reserve with a groin ailment, broke a 2-2 tie at 8:03. Ryan O'Reilly won a faceoff in the left circle and drew the puck back to Elliott, who skated to his right and put a screen shot that eluded Dubnyk to the stick side.

Mired in a 2-for-22 drought on power plays, the Avalanche tied the game at 6:06 on O'Brien’s first goal of the season with Edmonton's Jeff Petry off for slashing. O'Brien was about 40 feet out when he launched a shot that sailed over Dubnyk's glove.

The Oilers grabbed a 2-1 lead on a goal by Ryan Jones at 2:24 of the second period during a three-on-two rush. Avalanche goalie Semyon Varlamov stopped the original shot by Eric Belanger, but Jones put in the rebound.

Colorado had a great chance to tie the game while shorthanded 90 seconds later, when O'Brien passed to a wide-open Jay McClement, but he fired the puck over the net.

The teams exchanged first-period goals, with Ladislav Smid scoring for the Oilers at 2:59 before McClement responded for the Oilers at 4:35.

Smid, with his first goal in 125 games, was in the left circle when he fired the puck into a half-open net off a pass from Sam Gagner. The play started when Jones intercepted O'Brien's pass up the middle and fed Gagner breaking into the Avalanche zone. Gagner was stopped by a sliding Varlamov, but he regained possession behind the net and passed to Smid.

McClement knocked a rebound past Dubnyk after Chuck Kobasew was stopped on a 2-on-1 rush off a pass from Matt Duchene. Colten Teubert was the lone Oilers defender back because partner Theo Peckham was up ice trying to put a hit on Avalanche defenseman Ryan Wilson, who moments earlier hammered Taylor Hall in the corner.

Hall's left arm was limp as he left the ice and he managed to return about five minutes later, but he left for good late in the period with a left shoulder injury after getting cross-checked by defenseman Kyle Quincey.

-by Rick Sadowski for NHL.com-