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Shoot-out goals by Marek Svatos and Milan Hejduk lifted the Colorado Avalanche to a 4-3 win over the Detroit Red Wings, their fourth consecutive victory.

Colorado (6-1-1) trailed 2-0 after two periods, but the Northwest Division leaders scored three times in the third to force extra play. Cody McLeod levelled the score at 3-3 with his second goal of the period.

"When you have everything going your way, you should bury them," Detroit coach Mike Babcock said. "We didn't bury them.

"We let them stay in the game instead of putting a knife in them and it came back to haunt us."

Neither team scored in overtime with Detroit's Jason Williams and Colorado's Svatos (pictured) trading goals in the shoot-out before Hejduk fired the game winner past Detroit netminder Chris Osgood.

Detroit (3-3-1) had taken its 2-0 lead on goals by Justin Abdelkader and Todd Bertuzzi before Colorado roared back.

"We played pretty well until the last five minutes, and we can't afford to do that," Detroit defenseman Brian Rafalski said.

"We stopped doing the little things, stopped skating a little bit, a few turnovers, and you just can't afford to do that."

McLeod and Matt Duchene levelled the score at 2-2 11:45 into the third, but Valtteri Filppula put Detroit back on top before McLeod scored again with 2:32 remaining in regulation.

Netminder Craig Anderson made 28 saves for the Avalanche, who have not lost since a shootout defeat to Chicago a week ago.

Osgood made 26 saves for Detroit.

NHL results on Saturday (home team in CAPS):

Atlanta 4 BUFFALO 2

NY Rangers 4 TORONTO 1

Ottawa 3 MONTREAL 1

NEW JERSEY 2 Carolina 0

San Jose 4 NY ISLANDERS 1

WASHINGTON 3 Nashville 2 (SO)

Colorado 4 DETROIT 3 (SO)

COLUMBUS 4 Los Angeles 1

PITTSBURGH 4 Tampa Bay 1

Dallas 4 CHICAGO 3

PHOENIX 4 Boston 1

VANCOUVER 2 Minnesota 1

St. Louis 5 ANAHEIM 0

(SO denotes shootout win)

Reuters