Blue Jackets rally to beat Avalanche

Dan Fritsche scored the game winner in a wild third period, 5-4.

COLUMBUS (AP) — The crowd was quiet. The Columbus Blue Jackets appeared to be thinking ahead to a late dinner.

All of a sudden Rick Nash scored a goal midway through the third period and the Blue Jackets snapped out of their trance.

Dan Fritsche’s goal with 4:05 left capped a wild six-goal third period in the Blue Jackets’ 5-4 comeback victory over the Colorado Avalanche Wednesday night.

Fritsche had the winner, but it Nash seemed to touch off a powder keg.

“They seemed to get a lot of momentum off that second goal,” Colorado coach Joel Quenneville said. “We played two rock-solid periods and then they got some life, scored a power-play goal right after and made it a different ballgame at that point.”

Colorado, 10-0-0 when leading after two periods before Wednesday, led 3-1 heading into the third period. The Avalanche also had history on their side, carrying a 22-1-1-1 record in 25 meetings with the Blue Jackets — the most lopsided series in the NHL.

“We’ve got to play off the momentum we had in the third,” said Nash, who upped his goal tally to 18. “Our fans were into it, they were loud. If we can play three periods that way, we could be a pretty good team.”

The Blue Jackets pulled even on Nash’s second goal of the night and another by recent minor league recall Joakim Lindstrom with a man advantage midway through the period.

“We just did a ton of good things and played hard — played the way you should when you want to win games,” said Kris Beech, who had a career-high three assists.

Then in little more than a minute the teams combined for three goals.

Columbus’ Nikolai Zherdev scored on a low shot from the slot with 5:16 left for a 4-3 lead, but Colorado’s Scott Hannan countered off a rebound with 4:35 remaining.

Just 30 seconds later, with the crowd roaring on every play, Jason Chimera’s shot was stopped by Colorado goalie Peter Budaj, but Fritsche cleaned up on a backhander.

“We were putting all the pressure on them,” Fritsche said. “We just got the puck to the net. It was laying in front of me and I picked it up with my backhand and I had an empty net.”

It was a rare comeback for a Columbus team that has seldom even stayed close in games with Colorado.