Photo: Bridget Samuels/Flickr.

Before the jump, I’ll give updates on the Avs participating in the World Championships. Jan Hejda, Czech Republic, played 15:03 in his team’s 2-0 win. Gabriel Landeskog earned a kneeing penalty in Team Sweden’s loss to Switzerland…Paul Stastny was named captain for the USA WC club.

Season Statistics: GPI 18 W 5 L 4 OT 4 SA 469 Sv % .908 GAA 2.84 (Giguere also took two penalties, for a total of four PIM.)

» Continue reading “Player Review: J.S. Giguere”

Ryan O’Reilly’s first goal in a while was an important one! Photo: Bridget Samuels/Flickr.

The Avs earned a nice win tonight against the Phoenix Coyotes, in their final road game of the season. Considering how poorly they’ve done on the road this year, it was nice to end that part of the season on a high note.

» Continue reading “Avs Play Excellent Game In The Desert”

Photo: Bridget Samuels/Flickr.

Tomorrow evening the Colorado Avalanche will play their second to last game of the season in Phoenix. I’ll be honest, my hopes are not high for this one. The Avs are 0-1-1 against Phoenix this season. The Coyotes have one of the slimmest chances to make the playoffs. They need Columbus, Detroit, and Dallas to all lose their final two games, while the Coyotes win both of their remaining games. I expect them to come out playing really hard.

The Avs have struggled against the Yotes in the past couple years, and I’m a similar struggle tomorrow evening. At this point in the season…well let’s just say I won’t be upset if the Avs lose tomorrow and then can pull off a win against Minnesota. Obviously, when the game actually starts, I’ll be rooting as hard for the Avs as ever. From a realistic standpoint though, I want the Avs to have that first overall pick. Florida is probably going to finish 30th overall in the league, but the Avs could very well have the second best shot at drafting first overall. While the team is assured a good pick no matter what, defense has been the biggest problem this season, and I think Seth Jones is the best option for this franchise. As an added bonus, Jones’ first team was the Avs, and Joe Sakic’s advice to Jones’ father has helped him.

J.S. Giguere will start in net. David Jones and Milan Hejduk will both be scratched again.

Insert obligatory reference to THE TRADE here. Photo: Matt Boulton/Flickr.

Tomorrow evening, the Avs are going to play St. Louis to finish off the home and home series between the two teams. The Avs have won all of the games at home against the Blues since April 12, 2009, but their record in their last three games in St. Louis is 0-2-1. If the Avs are serious about this spoiler role, and finishing the year out the right way, they need to come in and break that little losing streak.

Last night’s game was not a typical outing from the St. Louis Blues-they’re usually much better defensively, and their goaltending is usually superb. Let’s face it-Brian Elliott has never done well in the Pepsi Center, and the Avs, playing in front of military personnel and their families gave an exciting offensive performance. I’m expecting tomorrow to be a much tighter game, similar to the first 1-0 win for the Avs earlier this season. It will almost undoubtedly be a more physical, more nasty game (isn’t the second game in a home-and-home series always?).

There’s been no word on who the starting goaltender will be, although I would lean towards Giguere, as Sacco has been riding him for the past couple of weeks. (I would expect to see Varlamov at least one more time this season, as the final two games are on back to back nights.) Erik Johnson didn’t practice on Saturday, so even if he is back to practice today, I’m not sure he could be considered ready. Although the Avs haven’t said so, I think we can safely assume that Ryan Wilson is done for the season. If this really does turn out to be Milan Hejduk’s final season, then shame on Joe Sacco for scratching him so much during the past couple of weeks. The man has only given the franchise over 1,000 games of blood, sweat, and tears for Roy’s sake. While I like having Olver in the lineup, I’d rather see Hejduk. Hopefully he’ll be in for the next three games.

Photo: Bridget Samuels/Flickr.

Oh Avs. You were a minute and a half away from a win. Of course though, the Avs lost in overtime.

» Continue reading “Columbus Beats Avs In OT”

Thanks to GH’s LEM contributor, Todd, for this picture!

The Avs earned three out of four points on this California roadtrip, and played two excellent games. Tonight was special, as it was Sami Aittokallio’s first ever NHL start. (Not too shabby for a 20 year old kid, in his first year pro, and his first year in North America.)

» Continue reading “Bordeleau Scores First Goal In SO Loss”

First off, I want to apologize for being absent the past couple of days. Things are busy right now, but I believe I’ll be back to posting daily now.Now, onto the Avalanche.

» Continue reading “Giguere Speaks”

Cody McLeod…what a BAMF. He single-handedly killed off about 30 seconds of a penalty. Photo: Bridget Samuels/Flickr.

The Colorado Avalanche and the Detroit Red Wings played another fantastic game against each other. Unfortunately, the Wings won for the third time this season, but at least this one didn’t come until overtime.

In the first, it was Detroit (of course) who scored first. A few minutes later, some hard work by Palushaj and van der Gulik allowed Mark Olver to fly in on a breakaway, and bury a nice backhander. Sadly, the Avs only held the tie for a slightly pathetic 13 seconds. For the rest of the period, the Avs played really well, but they didn’t have a ton of quality chances. Throughout the second, the two teams played pretty tight defensive hockey, but it was still fast enough and physical enough to remain interesting.

Colorado really took control in the third, and had not only the majority of the chances, but some absolutely outstanding shots that I thought were going in. Jimmy Howard played spectacularly in that third, and was the only reason the Avs didn’t win this game in regulation. Particularly in the final 10 minutes, when the skaters for the Wings were running on fumes (not only from the altitude, but from the game the night before), Howard was crucial. Overtime continued similarly, with the Avs really dominating the play. Sadly, with 15.4 seconds left, Pavel Datsyuk poked a loose puck into the back of the net. It was kind of a sad way to end a game that featured some really great goaltending (sad as an Avs fan, but also sad if I look at the game objectively).

Well, a point is a point. The Avs aren’t making the playoffs, but I can be a proud fan after this effort. See y’all tomorrow after the Phoenix game.

Photo: Bridget Samuels/Flickr.

Someone needs to go to the Colorado Avalanche lockerroom, play the scene from The Help in which Emma Stone’s character sobs “you broke her heart”, and then show a picture of my gravestone. This season has been a nightmare. (Or, a dramatic mic drop gif. That was my reaction to Legwand’s goal in the final minute and a half.)

» Continue reading “Avs Reduce Me To Cave-Woman Communications”

Photo: Bridget Samuels/Flickr.

The Avs failed to earn the two points (again). Once more, the team fell to a 3-0 deficit (although this one took about 30 minutes, versus eight). They fought back hard, but it was too little, too late, and the game ended 3-2.

I thought the team actually came out with a good start. Unfortunately, they started to play sloppily after a poor powerplay opportunity, and Justin Abdelkader scored when he batted a mid-air rebound past Varlamov. In the second, the team came out the way they usually play in the first. Detroit scored two more goals (Cleary and Brunner). Varlamov was pulled (the goals weren’t necessarily his fault, but the team needed to wake up).The Avs started pushing in the third, taking advantage of poor Wings’ play. Jamie McGinn scored a powerplay goal, and Matt Duchene added a goal in the final 90 seconds to give the team some glimmer of hope. Jimmy Howard played a really good game, made a couple of nice saves especially at the end.

Tomorrow night the Avs play Nashville. Colorado has had some surprising success over Smashville this season, including a 1-0 win Saturday, so let’s see if they can continue that.