BOSTON (AP) — The Colorado Avalanche certainly make the most of their limited trips to New England.
Milan Hejduk scored with 12:03 left in the third period and Semyon Varlamov stopped 30 shots for his fifth career shutout, lifting the Avalanche to a 1-0 win over the Boston Bruins on Monday.
The Avalanche has not lost in Boston since March 1998. Since then, Colorado is 6-0-1 during its visits.
The Stanley Cup champion Bruins have lost two of three to start the season.
Hejduk scored the Avalanche’s first goal of the season. They lost 3-0 at home to Detroit in their opener Saturday night.
“We’ve had two tough challenges to start the season,” Colorado center Paul Stastny said. “It’s easy to get up for these games, especially playing a team like this — the defending champs.”
The Avalanche certainly were satisfied to have a win this season despite a low-scoring start.
“To have one goal in two games and have one win, I think we’ll take it,” Hejduk said.
Boston coach Claude Julien hopes his team now will realize what he has been preaching since the preseason.
“You hope that it’s one of those games that we were talking about, that teams are going to come in here and they are going to work a lot harder,” he said. “We got outhustled by a team that was a lot hungrier then we were.”
The Avalanche started fast, controlling play in the opening period.
“I thought we had some good urgency to start the game,” Colorado coach Joe Sacco said. “The guys were really ready to play. They responded well. That’s a tough team to play against. They’re a physical team, and they use their size very well.”
Varlamov was acquired from Washington for a pair of draft picks during the summer. He had 36 saves in the loss to the Red Wings.
Hejduk collected a loose puck along the boards, cut to the right circle and sent a wrist shot that slipped inside the right post by Tuukka Rask, who appeared to be partially screened on the shot by defenseman Zdeno Chara.
Chara said it hit his shin pad on its way to the net.
“I was screened, but I saw the shot going,” Rask said. “It hit a shin.”
A few minutes later, Varlamov dove across the crease to make a blocker save on Milan Lucic’s wrist shot from in close.
Rask stopped 35 shots in his first start of the season. Vezina Trophy winner Tim Thomas played the first two games in goal for Boston after playing the entire postseason.
“For the first game in a long time, I felt pretty good,” Rask said.
Rask was tested early and often. The Avalanche had a two-man power play advantage for 27 seconds and kept up the pressure, with Stastny hitting the left post on a backhand bid off of a rebound in front.
The Bruins had a pair of good scoring chances, both coming on 2-on-1 breaks in the latter half of the second period. On the first bid, Daniel Paille’s pass went between the legs of a streaking Chris Kelly near the midway point of the period.
Varlamov made a left-pad stop on Brad Marchand’s tip from in close late in the period. Varlamov also made a sparkling glove stop on Marchand’s wrist shot from the right circle at the end of a 2-on-1 break while Boston was short-handed early in the game.
The Bruins had a 4-on-2 break early in the third, but Varlamov made a right-pad save on Patrice Bergeron’s shot from the slot.
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