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Thursday, Mar. 23 10:00pm ET
Sakic's milestone night fires up Avs

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PHOENIX (AP) -- Joe Sakic may carry the Colorado Avalanche into the playoffs as the third-seeded team in the Western Conference.

He had three goals Thursday night, including the 400th of his career, to lead the Avalanche to a 4-2 victory over the Phoenix Coyotes.

During Colorado's 11-game stretch run to catch and pass Edmonton for the Northwest Division lead, Sakic has scored at least once in each contest -- a season-high run that includes 15 goals, seven assists and two hat tricks -- and the Avalanche are 7-3-1.

"I felt great in the warmup, and I was skating good for a while," Sakic said. "But our whole team had 'jump.' Peter (Forsberg) had his legs going, so it's something where we're all happy with the outcome."

The win moved Colorado two points ahead of the Oilers and sent the slumping Coyotes to their fifth consecutive loss, and eighth in 10 games.

The Coyotes, who were tied with Dallas for the NHL's best record at the All-Star break, would fall to eighth in the Western Conference if they lost at San Jose on Friday night.

Forsberg also scored for Colorado, and Adam Deadmarsh had two assists.

Phoenix rookie Trevor Letowski had his 17th goal, and Shane Doan solved Colorado's Marc Denis with 3:32 remaining. But Denis stopped the Coyotes' 24 other shots.

Bob Essensa had 19 saves for Phoenix in the battle of backup goalies.

Coach Bob Francis saw some light in the fact that Phoenix stayed competitive, and outshot the Avalanche 11-5 in the third period.

"The easy thing would have been to pack it in when we gave up those couple soft early goals," Francis said. "But the guys didn't accept it, and I thought they made the statement that we're ready to get out of this."

Sakic had two power-play goals early in the first period.

The first extended his season-high scoring streak to 11 games. It came 2:36 into the game and 37 seconds into a four-minute power play after Doan was given a double minor for knocking Martin Skoula to the ice with a high stick.

Sakic's goal trickled between Essensa's legs after a give-and-go from Deadmarsh.

Forty-six seconds later, Sakic was back in the circle after a dash up ice, and his shot on the fly again found the net through the five-hole. It was the 30-year-old center's 25th of the season and 400th since he entered the NHL in 1988.

"It's a great milestone, but I'm not really looking at milestones right now," Sakic said. "I like to think I still have a few good years left. Any time you think you've got one or two more years left you start thinking about milestones and shoot for some goals, but right now it's too early."

Sakic got his ninth career hat trick with 9:48 left.

He retrieved the puck at his blue line after Aaron Miller knocked a pass from Keith Tkachuk off Jyrki Lumme's stick. Sakic dashed toward the other end with Tkachuk in pursuit but unable to catch up, and fired high into the net from the top of the circle.

The third goal gave him a franchise-record 1,049 points, one more than Peter Stastny, and 22 points during his streak.

"We capitalized at the right time," coach Bob Hartley said. "The power play was awesome, and Joe's third goal put them behind the 8 ball."

Letowski scored on a crease-crossing pass from Greg Adams 8:22 into the game, but Forsberg dampened the crowd's spirits again with a double wraparound, circling the net twice before snapping a shot past Essensa.

"I think that is the best effort for 60 minutes that we've had in a while," said Letowski, whose power-play goal was the first in 13 Phoenix advantages over seven periods. "It's a shame the first five had to go that way."

That gave the Avalanche a 3-1 lead with 7:26 left in the first, and that's where it stayed until Sakic scored again.

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