Blues goalie stops Avalanche again

~ Rucinsky scored two goals in a 4-2 victory, and Legace improved to 10-1 lifetime against Colorado.

DENVER -- Martin Rucinsky scored two goals and Manny Legace beat Colorado for the eighth straight time in the St. Louis Blues' 4-2 win over the Avalanche on Friday night.

Keith Tkachuk scored an empty-net goal with 30.1 seconds left after Colorado pulled goalie Peter Budaj with 1:03 remaining.

Legace stopped 30 shots to improve to 10-1 in his career against Colorado.

Rucinsky's power-play goal midway through the third period was the winner. He scored his seventh and eighth goals of the season.

Bill Guerin and Rucinsky scored second-period goals for the Blues. Colorado countered with goals from Joe Sakic and Wojtek Wolski.

Guerin, who also assisted on Rucinsky's goal, has five goals in his last five games and 17 on the season.

Sakic's goal inched him closer to tying Paul Coffey for 10th place on the NHL's career scoring list. Sakic (1,530 points) is a point shy of Coffey.

Wolski, one of the top rookie scorers in the league, has six points in his last three games.

Budaj had a career-best, four-game winning streak snapped. He got the start in net over Jose Theodore, who was pulled in the third period against Dallas on Wednesday night after he gave up five goals.

The Blues haven't allowed a first-period goal in nine straight games since Andy Murray took over as head coach for Mike Kitchen on Dec. 11. St. Louis is 4-2-3 since the switch.

With Patrice Brisebois out with a back injury, the Avalanche brought up defenseman Kyle Cumiskey from Albany of the American Hockey League on Thursday.

Brisebois hurt his back in the second period against Dallas on Wednesday night. He was a scratch for the Blues game. So were center Brett McLean, who also hurt his back, and Cumiskey.

The two teams will play again tonight in St. Louis.

Noteworthy

• Skrastins played in his 470th consecutive game Friday night, the longest active streak in the NHL and second longest by a defenseman in NHL history. Tim Horton played in 486 straight games for Toronto from 1961 to 1968.