Dafoe, Bruins Blank Avalanche

New season, same old Byron Dafoe.

Last year, the Boston Bruins goaltender had six shutouts and a 2.44 goals-against average. On Wednesday night, he got his second shutout of the young season, a 3-0 victory over the Colorado Avalanche.

Ray Bourque had a goal and an assist and Jason Allison and Joe Thornton also scored for the Bruins, who beat the Avalanche for the first time in four meetings in Denver.

"I see no difference in the way he's played from last year," Boston coach Pat Burns said. "We got off to a fast start last year because of him and we had a good season mainly because of him. He definitely kept us in the game tonight."

The Avalanche are 0-3 for the first time in the 20-year history of the franchise, which started as the Quebec Nordiques.

"Right now, there is someone, somewhere that is making our life pretty tough," Colorado first-year coach Bob Hartley said. "We hit the post twice and had a goal disallowed. We didn't communicate well on their second goal and we have to get that out of our system."

Dafoe, who blanked the New York Islanders on Monday, got his ninth career shutout and extended Colorado's scoreless streak to 137 minutes.

Dafoe made several fine saves late in the second period to preserve the shutout. Seconds after making a sliding skate save of a shot from Aaron Miller, Dafoe stopped Miller's slap shot from the slot with oston shorthanded.

Joe Sakic sent a hard shot off Dafoe's mask at 18:36 of the period, sending the goalie to the ice. Trainers attended to Dafoe and he finished the game.

"Sakic let it go pretty good and it caught the side of my cheek," Dafoe said. "It stunned me and knocked me senseless for a minute and then I was fine."

Dafoe got two breaks in the third period. Miller hit the post 30 seconds into the period and Milan Hejduk's apparent goal at 7:09 was waved off because teammate Chris Drury was in the crease.

Patrick Roy stopped 20 of 23 shots for Colorado.

Bourque and Allison scored first-period goals to give Boston a 2-0 lead. Sergei Samsonov set up Bourque in the slot on the power play, and the veteran defenseman sent a shot over Roy's right shoulder at 8:29.

"It was a great pass," Bourque said. "Samsonov got the puck in the corner, looked across the crease and drew the top guy down and a seam opened up right up top to me."

It was Bourque's 376th career goal, second among defenseman behind Paul Coffey's 383.

Colorado's defense was caught napping on Allison's wraparound goal at 15:44. Defenseman Adam Foote allowed Allison to make an uncontested move from behind the net as he stood in front of the crease.

Thornton scored a power-play goal at 15:23 of the third period. The Avalanche have failed to score on 17 straight power plays after going 0-for-6 against Boston's penalty killers.

"We moved the puck really well in the third period and had some great chances," Colorado right winger Jeff Odgers said. "Give some credit to Dafoe. He made some big saves."

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