Lehkonen, Compher help Avalanche hold off Flyers

DENVER --Artturi Lehkonen and J.T. Compher each had a goal and an assist, and the Colorado Avalanche held on for a 3-2 win against the Philadelphia Flyers at Ball Arena on Tuesday.

Devon Toews scored, and Pavel Francouz made 26 saves for the Avalanche (15-10-2), who have won their past two games after losing four in a row (0-3-1), including 5-3 at Philadelphia on Dec. 5.
"They're a team that blocks a lot of shots, right? It's hard to get pucks through to the net," Colorado coach Jared Bednar said. "When you do, there's usually a crowd there and you're fighting for rebounds. Offense doesn't come easy against them.
"But [in the] second period, we kind of got our legs moving a little bit in the offensive zone, and as we kind of started to win the wave battle. Then we also got some rush opportunities, and we capitalized on them. So, pretty good resiliency from the group again."

Cam York had a goal and an assist, and James van Riemsdyk scored for the Flyers (9-14-7), who have lost four straight (0-2-2). Felix Sandstrom made 22 saves.
"I think in the second period, [we] iced the puck a lot, we turned the puck over. For the first 10, 12 minutes of that period, we're in our end zone," Philadelphia coach John Tortorella said. "I thought we got back in it. I thought the second half of the second period we got back in it. I thought we played a good third."
York made it 1-0 at 12:52 of the first period when he crashed the net and backhanded the rebound of his initial shot over Francouz for his first goal of the season. He was recalled from Lehigh Valley of the American Hockey League on Dec. 8.
"That felt good," York said. "My confidence has been high. I think the goal definitely helps, and hopefully it continues to help my game."

Toews tied it 1-1 at 9:25 of the second when he cut behind the defense, collected a pass from Compher and scored five-hole with a backhand.
"We talked about trying to get the middle, and it's harder for their [defense] to play you," Compher said. "They have to kind of make a decision, and it was a great cut by 'Toewser'. Made it really easy on me to make that pass."
Lehkonen put the Avalanche ahead 2-1 at 15:04 while short-handed when he chased down a clearing attempt and fired a snap shot from between the circles past Sandstrom.
"It kind of like slowed down a bit," Lehkonen said. "I don't really know what happened, but I wasn't going on it at first, but then took a fortunate bounce. I was just trying to shoot it quick five-hole."
Compher extended the lead to 3-1 at 11:33 of the third period when he took a pass from Lehkonen at the left face-off circle and fired a wrist shot.
"We were just trying to get the cycle going and support each other, and 'Lehky' makes some really nice play into the middle to me," Compher said. "We didn't want to sit back in the third. We wanted to continue to push, and we did an OK job of that. We knew we had a little more offensively after the first two periods, and it ended up mattering."

Van Riemsdyk cut it to 3-2 at 16:22 when he tipped Travis Konecny's one-timer with Sandstrom pulled for the extra skater.
"We knew they were going to pull him at some point early, and then [Tortorella] did it right away," Bednar said. "So, I just told them this and that was a quick mistake. This is how we want to handle it, give them a couple pointers on it. It might be something they look for again once they had success on it, and to make sure we're putting enough pressure on him down low when the pucks are on the boards and try and jump.
"Continue to try and make a play to get us up the ice to get the empty-netter if we can, and if not, make sure pucks get out. It's just little reminders for them just so they feel confident in what we're doing, and they did a nice job of it after that moving forward."