DETROIT, May 18 (UPI) -- Darren McCarty made his first career hat trick a natural one as he scored three times in the third period Saturday to rally the Detroit Red Wings to a 5-3 victory over the Colorado Avalanche in Game One of the National Hockey League Western Conference finals.
Shaken up late in the second period following a collision with defenseman Rob Blake, McCarty got even in the third with his first hat trick in 650 NHL games -- regular season and playoffs.
Just 78 seconds into the final period, McCarty used sliding defenseman Adam Foote as a screen and snapped a wrist shot from the high slot over the glove of goaltender Patrick Roy to end an 11-game postseason scoring drought.
With 7:16 remaining, McCarty got a pass from Kirk Maltby at his own blue line, moved into the Avalanche zone and ripped a blast from the top of the right faceoff circle over Roy's left shoulder. That matched his production for the previous 25 playoff games.
Three minutes later, Maltby picked off Roy's clearing attempt at the top of the right circle. Roy scrambled back and made a sliding stop on Maltby's slap shot, but McCarty lifted the rebound over the goalie to make it 5-2 as hats littered the ice.
Tomas Holmstrom and Brett Hull also scored for the top-seeded Red Wings, who erased a pair of deficits to maintain home-ice advantage in the best-of-seven series.
Joe Sakic had a power-play goal and an assist for Colorado, which lost the opener for the second straight playoff series.
Game Two is in Detroit on Monday.
