Francouz, Avalanche top Forsberg, Hurricanes for fifth straight win

RALEIGH, N.C. -- Pavel Francouz made 45 saves for the Colorado Avalanche in a 3-2 win against Anton Forsberg and the Carolina Hurricanes at PNC Arena on Friday.

"That's their style of hockey, they're just throwing everything to the net," Francouz said. "For a goalie, games like this, it's just fun. It's always fun to be in the game all the time."
Forsberg, who made 29 saves, was playing his first NHL game since March 26, 2018, after Petr Mrazek (concussion protocol) and James Reimer (lower body) were injured in a 6-3 win against the Toronto Maple Leafs on Saturday, when emergency backup goalie David Ayres made eight saves on 10 shots.
WATCH: [All Avalanche vs. Hurricanes highlights]
Alex Nedeljkovic started and made 12 saves for Carolina in a 4-1 loss to the Dallas Stars on Tuesday.
Samuel Girard scored the tiebreaking goal late in the third period, and Tyson Jost had two goals for Colorado (38-18-7), which has won five in a row and trails the St. Louis Blues by three points for first place in the Central Division.
"Games like that, I've got mixed feelings," Avalanche coach Jared Bednar said. "It's not perfect, it's certainly not pretty, but there's something to be said about sticking with it and being able to come up and capitalize."

Teuvo Teravainen scored twice in the third period for Carolina (35-24-4), which has lost three of four and remained two points behind the Columbus Blue Jackets for the second wild card into the Stanley Cup Playoffs from the Eastern Conference. Sebastian Aho had two assists to extend his point streak to 14 games (12 goals, nine assists).
"It's going to be a long one, but we have one game tomorrow and we have to prepare, just try to get some positives off this game," Teravainen said. "We can't go into tomorrow feeling bad about this game. Just try to be strong again tomorrow (against the Montreal Canadiens)."
Girard gave Colorado a 3-2 lead with 2:37 remaining in the third period when he pinched in from the blue line, received a pass from Gabriel Landeskog, and scored with a shot short-side top shelf from the left hash marks.
"It's all about [Landeskog]," Girard said. "He brought all those guys on him and I had open space there. It was a great play by [Landeskog]."
The Hurricanes have at least 41 shots in each of their past three games.
"I thought it was great other than the result and the one gaffe at the end," Hurricanes coach Rod Brind'Amour said. "I thought it was a great game playing against a great team."
Teravainen made it 2-1 at 5:54 of the third period. Francouz stopped his one-timer off a pass from Aho, but the rebound went in off the stick of Avalanche defenseman Ian Cole.
"In the third period for sure, we had a great mind set," Hurricanes defenseman Brady Skjei said. "We had our looks and they had theirs. They capitalized on theirs just a little more than ours."

Teravainen tied it 2-2 with a wrist shot five-hole on a rush off a pass from Jaccob Slavin at 7:55 of the third.
"[Teravainen] is one of the best forwards on their team. He had some good moments there," Francouz said. "His first goal was a little lucky, but honestly, I feel like they deserved such a goal because we were pretty lucky before that."
Jost gave Colorado a 1-0 lead at 6:34 of the first period, stealing the puck from Hurricanes defenseman Jake Gardiner and scoring on a 2-on-1.
"I was going to slide it over to [J.T. Compher], and [Hurricanes defenseman Trevor van Riemsdyk] kind of bit on my fake pass and I just ripped it over the shoulder," Jost said.
He pushed the lead to 2-0 at 12:51 of the second. Cale Makar intercepted Andrei Svechnikov's clearing attempt along the right boards and fed Jost cutting from the circle.

They said it

"I don't really know why, but I feel like we're not scared to play on the road. We're just playing like we're on a homestand and we keep winning. It's huge for us, for sure, especially coming to the playoffs, that we can win on the road." -- Avalanche goalie Pavel Francouz
"We're still a young team. Some of these guys making the mistakes at the end are our young guys. That's just part of the learning curve. But they're also the guys winning the games, so you've got to keep working with them. I still have a lot of confidence in these guys. We're going to dwell on the positives and keep trying to clean up the other stuff." -- Hurricanes coach Rod Brind'Amour

Need to know

The Avalanche have won seven straight on the road, tying the longest streak in Colorado/Quebec Nordiques history (Jan. 10-Feb. 7, 1999). … Colorado is 15-for-15 on the penalty kill in its past seven games. … Aho's point streak is the third longest in Hurricanes/Hartford Whalers history, trailing Mike Rogers, who had a 17-game point streak in 1979-80, and an 18-game point streak in 1980-81 for Hartford. … Slavin tied his NHL career high in assists (29) and points (34), each set in 2016-17. ... Svechnikov had his 11-game point streak end.

What's next

Avalanche:At the Nashville Predators on Saturday (7 p.m. ET; ESPN+, FS-TN, ALT, NHL.TV)
Hurricanes: At the Montreal Canadiens on Saturday (7 p.m. ET; CITY, SNE, TVAS, FS-CR, NHL.TV)