"I didn't change anything [about my game], I just played the same way," said Bourque. "I go hard to the net and finally it payed off. The A, I am pretty happy about it, a lot of guys deserve it."
The Avalanche had five different goal scorers in the outing, a contest that featured more short-handed goals than it did power-play tallies.
"At times, it was a little bit of a strange game," said Bednar. "I thought our 5-on-5 game was pretty good, but there was a lot of special teams. We gave up two short-handed goals, scored a short-handed goal, gave up a 5-on-3 and a 6-on-5, too. So it was a little bit of a different game, but I liked our overall effort. I thought we did a couple of good things offensively. We got to some rebounds in front of the net and punched some pucks home. So, it wasn't pretty, but it is a big win for our team, there's no question."
Colorado got on the board just 43 seconds into the game when Nikita Zadorov sent a puck up ice to Colin Wilson and Alex Kerfoot for a 2-on-0 rush. Wilson fed the puck to Kerfoot, who finished the play with a tap in for his 13th tally of the season.
Early in the second period, Wilson had a scoring chance of his own and fired a wrist shot to the back of Buffalo's net for the 100th goal of his NHL career.