Svatos' first two goals help sink Blue Jackets

Marek Svatos was playing his first game for the Avalanche since last October.
COLUMBUS (AP) -- Marek Svatos scored his first two NHL goals and Joe Sakic added his 33rd goal of the year, to lead the Colorado Avalanche to a 4-2 win over the Columbus Blue Jackets on Friday night.
The Avalanche franchise still has a chance to win its 10th straight division title. Colorado came into the game tied for the top spot in the Northwest Division with Vancouver, with the Canucks holding the tiebreaker.
Svatos opened the season with the Avalanche but then injured his shoulder, and had to have surgery for the second time in nine months. He was playing his first game since getting hurt Oct. 12, 2003, against St. Louis.
He scored on the fourth and fifth shots of his career -- in only his third career game -- to end Colorado's five-game road losing streak.
Avalanche comeback
Trailing 1-0 heading into the second period, the Avalanche scored three times.
Svatos tied it on a rush off a nifty pass from Milan Hejduk. Sakic then gave the Avalanche the lead when he cleaned up the rebound on Paul Kariya's shot.
Svatos made it 3-1 on a goal set up by Peter Forsberg. Forsberg slipped a defender at the goal line and tossed a pass into the slot where Svatos' shot deflected off defenseman Luke Richardson's skate and then off goaltender Marc Denis' stick.
Kariya had an empty-net goal and an assist, and Forsberg had three assists.
Third loss in row
Nikolai Zherdev and Jaroslav Spacek each had a goal and an assist for Columbus, which lost its third in a row.
Before the game, Columbus owner John H. McConnell spoke to the capacity crowd in a video.
"We've got some great young players coming up who will be superstars in the future," he said. "Rick Nash and Nikolai Zherdev are just two; there are many more in the wings. You're going to see a great hockey team in the future."
The Blue Jackets took the first five shots and led 1-0 after the opening minute.
On the power play, Zherdev circled around the goal cage and got off a wrist shot high over goaltender David Aebischer's shoulder. It was Zherdev's 13th goal of the season.
Aebischer stopped Nash, tied for the NHL lead in goals with 40, on a third-period rush. He also gloved two Zherdev slap shots from the point and finished with 38 saves.