Game #62 Preview

Tonight, the Avs carry a two-game losing streak into New Jersey to take on the returning Martin Brodeur and the Devils. The Devils currently sit third in the East, despite Marty being out for most of the season thus far. Johnny on-the-spot Liles isn't going to be on the spot, or on the ice, tonight as most of us had hoped for. In a game against one of the top teams in the league, I think this is a big blow, as his replacement, Tjarnqvist, can't do half of the things Liles is capable of. Let's cross our fingers for him to return by Saturday against the Rangers.

On the trade rumor front, The Denver Post is reporting that the Wings are interested in acquiring our beloved Lappy by the trade deadline. No matter what we get from them, I cannot approve a deal like this. Lappy brings everything to the ice every single night, and that's all you can ask for out of a hockey player. Eklund is also reporting that we are interested in acquiring Alexander Frolov from the Kings or Jason Spezza from the Senators. I'm a fan of both players, but the deal would have to be right for me to be okay with it

Avs get Thrashed early, can't fully recover.

Today, the Avs gave their best impression of a team who could care less about attempting to make the playoffs, at least in the first period. Shortly after the 11 minute mark of the first period, the Thrashers had a commanding three goal lead on our boys in burgandy. However, the Avs decided to show a sign of life as Milan Hejduk scored his 9th PPG of the year on a beautiful cross-crease pass from none other than Paul Stastny. That pass right there really showed what we have missed over the past two months with him out of the lineup. In the second, Hejduk cut the game to a one goal deficit for the Avs with a rocket of a wrister from the slot which banked off the inside of the post before finding the twine. Though, four minutes later, the Thrashers scored their second short-handed goal of the game, bringing their lead to two goals once again. The third period saw a lot of back and forth action with the Avs seeming to have a little bit of an edge. With Budaj on the bench, Chris Stewart scored his 9th goal of the year, but the Avs efforts to tie the game fell short and ended up with a 4-3 loss. The Avs showed a lot of resiliency in this game, but in all honesty, they shouldn't have had to battle back from a three goal deficit against a team like Atlanta. With Stastny back in the lineup, the Avs should be able to put goals on the board, but they can't keep digging themselves into the holes they've become accustomed to this season.

Back for the attack.

After a long absence, I am back. School, friends visiting from out of town, and vacations have all kept me away, but I am looking to get back to writing on a regular basis. A lot has happened in the Avalanche world in the month since my last post. I was in Denver for the last three games in the month of January, and the Avs decided to honor the fact that I traveled 1,000 miles to see them by losing all three games. However, I didn't let those games ruin my trip. I truly love the city of Denver and definitely plan on moving there at some point in the near future. I was able to attend two practices and meet a bunch of the players as well. If you'd like to read more about my trip and see pictures from around the city, I have a travel blog that I kept regularly on my Denver trip, which you can view by clicking on the profile link found on this blog.

The Avs have been up and down since then, which is really nothing new (though they did beat the Red Wings for the THIRD straight time this season), but they look to get a huge boost tonight as Paul Stastny returns to the line-up tonight in Atlanta after missing the last 26 (hey, isn't that his number?) games since suffering a broken forearm against the Coyotes way back in December. If the going rate for games missed due to injury corresponds to your number, let's hope Ryan Smyth never gets hurt again. Please, and thank you. According to the Denver Post, he was skating on a line in practice with Cody McLeod on his left and Milan Hejduk on his right. This is a line I absolutely love and can't wait to see in action tonight. I assume Willsie will be the odd-man-out of the lineup tonight, though part of me would prefer to see Tucker sit, despite his decent play recently.

Be jealous

Yes Avs fans, it's true. I am at Pepsi Center tonight and will be for the next two games as well! I will try to write a bit between each period, but there's a good chance I'll be too mesmerized by the fact that I'm at Pepsi Center to formulate coherent thoughts, Either way, I will post pictures after the game, and as always.. GO AVS!!!

Game 47 Preview

Tonight, we will see a battle of two of the Western Conference powerhouses as the Kings travel to the Pepsi Center to take on the Colorado Avalanche. The Avalanche currently sit in 11th in the West while the Kings are nearly bringing up the rear in 13th, though only four points separates the two squads. Okay, so maybe "powerhouse" wasn't the best choice in adjective. Much to my father's chagrin, the Avs are 3-0 against the Kings this season, and they will go for the season sweep with Peter Budaj, who has won all three contests against the Kings this season, between the pipes tonight. In the opposing net will most likely be Jonathan Quick, but there's a chance we could see Jonathan Bernier in net since Quick played last night in Minnesota. Bernier has a 1-3 lifetime record in the NHL, but has supposedly played really well in the AHL thus far, giving the Kings extremely high hopes for the youngster. According to the Avs' official site, none of the injured men will return to the ice tonight, as they will take an extra week off to return to health due to the All-Star break. Personally, I think Stewart should give Johnny Zeiler the ol' Strachan treatment tonight. Thoughts?

#300

Before the game recap, I want to give a gigantic, avalanche-sized congratulations to both Ryan Smyth and Milan Hejduk, who both netted career goals #300 in Sunday's win against the Flames. The majority of Smyth's goals came while playing with Edmonton, but all 300 of Hejduk's came for the good guys. What an accomplishment!

Now, onto the game! The Avs came out stronger on offense than the previous 45 games this year, but it appeared Flames' backup Curtis McElhinney was up for the challenge as he came up with big save after big save, but only managed to keep the Avs off the board for 16 minutes before Marek Svatos was able to bang home a rebound in the crease on the powerplay. Less than two minutes later, Salei hit Stewart with a homerun pass for a breakaway, and Stewey made no mistake in finding the back of the net for his fifth goal of the year. By the end of the first, the Avs were leading the shots on goal margin by a total of 20-8. I could be wrong, but I think that's the biggest one period shot differential in favor of the Avs this season.

Ten minutes into the second period, the game seemed to be turning to an all-too-familiar direction as Cammalerri notched his 20th goal of the season on a perfect cross-ice feed on the powerplay, closing the Flames deficit to only one goal. Less than two minutes later, Ruslan Salei took his second straight penalty, giving the red-hot Flames' powerplay a chance to even the score. BUT never fear, Ben Guite is here! After a big save by Budaj, Smyth took the puck up ice with Guite not too far behind creating a two-on-one chance for the Avs. The Flames were obviously SO terrified of how good Ben is as they left Ryan Smyth alone to take the shot of his choice and he buried career goal #300 in the back of the net. Teammate Milan Hejduk was also sitting at 299 career goals coming into the game, and I guess he figured that since Smytty scored #300, he couldn't be left behind with a mere 299 goals! About five minutes later, he was able to score big #300 as well on a powerplay feed from JML. Haynes' goal calls of "NUMBER 300!!!" were nearly identical, but I loved every second of it.

The Flames cut the score to 4-2 early in the third, but the Avs wouldn't let that last for long as they scored two goals in the final five minutes of the period, courtesy of Salei and MVP Cody McLeod. McLeod's TENTH (yes, you read that right) goal of the season came with less than one second left on the clock, and was the proverbial cherry on the top for all Avs fans, and the proverbial slap in the face for all Flames fans. Budaj had a great comeback game after a recent dry-spell of sorts, stopping 39 of 41 Flames shots.

After the game, Budaj was announced as the third star. Then, Alan Roach announced that there would be no second star of the game, as there were two FIRST STARS. Of course, he was referring to Smyth and Hejduk. It would've been special enough for each of them to reach the milestone at some point during this season, but too accomplish it together on the same night made it that much better. I think the saying "a picture is worth one thousand words" applies well here, as the size of their smiles in the picture above says all you need to know about how special that moment was. Hats off to you, Ryan and Milan. Congratulations.

Rayzor slips in an Oil slick.

Just when I was starting to turn to the 'dark side' (yes, I've been watching some Star Wars this week) and become a Rayzor supporter, he goes and pulls something absolutely terrible and unforgivable like that third-period, back-breaking, game-winning, completely demoralizing goal that knocked me, and his own confidence in net, back down to planet Earth. There are no excuses for a bone-headed play like that, in a game as important as tonight's. He had no business coming out to play that puck. That's the kind of thing good ol' Patrick used to do in his many attempts to score that one goal he always dreamed of. That's something Marty Turco, or his one-time understudy Mike Smith, is allowed to do because they actually possess basic puck-handling skils and are able to clear the puck by an opposing player with relative ease. This is NOT something The Rayzor should be thinking of doing, no matter how confident he feels in himself at the moment. Yes, the Oilers probably outplayed the Avs a bit tonight and deserved to win, but the fact is the team stayed in the game, and, if not for the stellar goaltending by Mathieu Garon, probably would've won and gotten the two HUGE points up for grabs in tonight's contest. Once again, absolutely inexcusable on Rayzor's part and it's going to take another seven-game winning streak for me to trust him again.

In other news, at various points early in the game, I happened to say a couple bad things about Tyler Arnason and T.J. Hensick's lack of ability to put the puck in the net. And what did they do about it? Not one, but BOTH OF THEM scored and made me eat my words, which happened to taste pretty good at the time until the bonehead ruined it. Maybe the rant you see above will put some good karma on Raycroft's side, as the hockey gods obviously love to prove me wrong.

Game 45 Preview

Is anyone really excited about watching this game after the last two performances this week? Thankfully the Rayzor will be back in net after an abysmal performance last night by Peter Budaj. I haven't found an update on Davey Jones' Locker but I'm hoping he'll be back, and that they'll send Dupuis or Willsie to the press box for the game. Lappy and Foote should be out again, which I think is a huge blow to this team that definitely needs a bit of leadership in both the offensive and defensive zone.

Tonight is the first of EIGHT straight home games, lasting until early February. Tonight, especially, is a must-win, as it is against a divisional opponent with the same number of points right now. In my opinion, the Avs MUST get 10+ points out of a possible 16 from these eight home games, or they'll sadly find themselves way outside the playoff race, barely able to see the light at the end of the tunnel.

I think it's time to start singing the Budaj Blues.

As much as I love Peter Budaj, he is starting to wear out his welcome very quickly in my mind. Three out of four goals the Blues scored tonight (not counting the empty netter) were just plain awful. Just like the beginning of the season, that five hole is killing him, and the team's chances to stay in games. The team didn't play it's best game tonight, but they had a decent number of chances and managed to get two goals past Legace in the third to bring it to a 3-2 score. Cody McLeod brought his MVP campaign back to life tonight with his 9th goal of the season, and Guite returned to action, bringing mega-stache back with him just to make me happy. Stewart had a monster of a fight and is quickly moving up my favorite players list. Once again, Tucker was out on the ice in crunch time. WHY?!?!?! I don't know what's going on in TG's mind to think that he is worthy of this ice time, but hopefully it changes soon. Let's see if he decides to shake anything up for tomorrow's game. Maybe a Ledin call-up?

Game 44 Preview

Tonight the Avs finish up a two-game roadtrip in St. Louis, before playing eight straight games at good ol' Pepsi Center. In fact, their next road game is against the very same Blues team they will face off against tonight on Saturday, February 7th. By my calculations, that means our boys will be at home for approximately 23 straight days. Tonight is the type of game that the team can not have any minor Tyler Arnason/Darcy Tucker moments because the team just flat out needs to win these contests against "lesser" opponents, as they try to gain some ground in the playoff race. The Avs enter tonight's game with 45 points, technically in 11th place in the west, but tied for 9th. However, the team is just four points behind slumping Vancouver, with the appropriate number of games in hand to tie the Casucks. Budaj will be in net for the first time since a 2-0 loss to the Wild on January 4th, and I'm sure he will do everything he can to prove his worth after being a bit outplayed recently by "backup" Andrew Raycroft. David Jones is listed as questionable with a back injury, and while I wish no harm on Jones, his injury means Guite could see the ice tonight so we all know what I'm hoping for!