Avs down Canes in OT, 3-2

In Raleigh, Pavel Francouz made 46 saves for the Colorado Avalanche in a 3-2 win over the Hurricanes in extra time on Thursday night.“It’s a lot of fun for a goalie to have a fire of shots around you and the puck’s hitting you,” Francouz said. “Overall, it’s a pretty fun night.”

Artturi Lehkonen hit for the game-winner with 1:55 gone in the extra session.

“When ‘Comph’ got the puck, I just fanned out,” Lehkonen said. “He made a great pass, and I was just trying to hit the net.”

The Avs improved to 9-6-1.

Carolina’s Martin Necas forced the extra session when he knotted the game, 2-2, midway through the third period.

“I thought we played a good game,” Necas said. “[We took] a couple of little breathers. Obviously, I cannot let him go on a breakaway. That’s a tough one, when you’re playing good and they score this kind of goal.”

Carolina dropped to 10-5-2.

“That was a great game,” Carolina coach Rod Brind’Amour said. “Twenty guys just doing it the way we need to do it. Nothing was going our way [but] we didn’t get off track. I was extremely happy.”

The Hurricanes have lost four of their last six.

“Everyone on the bench is aware we are getting outplayed for the better part of the night,” Avalanche coach Jared Bednar said. “You’re going to need your goalie to hang in there and make some big saves for us, and that’s what he did tonight. He got us that win, no question.”

The Avs took a 1-0 lead in the fist period on a goal from Evan Rodrigues  at 7:20.

Sebastian Aho tied the game, 1-1, in the middle frame.

“We’ve got to score on that one,” Brind’Amour said. “We had a couple good chances. We’ve got to connect.”

The Avs reclaimed the lead on a breakaway goal from Alex Newhook late in the second period.

“We do the scouting every time before the game of the power play,” Francouz said. “This was one of the topics. We especially focus on this play. It paid off right away.”

Antti Raanta made 13 saves in the Canes loss.

“They sustained it all night,” Colorado defenseman Cale Makar said. “I felt like every single time, we were going back for pucks. Kudos to them. We, as a [defense corps], have to get a lot better at that to give our forwards chances. Overall, it showed a lot of character on our team tonight to be able to win that.”