I’m not even going to lie to you. News concerning the Colorado Avalanche is slow.

I could tell you all about Matt Duchene going home to Haliburton, Ontario for the summer. That’s totally happening. He’s now neck deep in friends, family, and fish for the next few months.

I could tell you that Daniel Winnik is busy playing golf and going to baseball games up in Toronto for the summer. He also proved that hockey players are not immune to the lost luggage crisis while singlehandedly spurring Toronto tourism and the purchase of disposable cameras. I know lots of people who would like a shot of him wandering around in his skivvies.

I could tell you that Avs’ prospect Joey Hishon and the Owen Sound Attack are now out of Memorial Cup contention, and that Hishon was hit on May 22 and sustained a minor injury that kept him out of the final game. It’s a little sad and depressing, but it happened.

I could tell you that Ryan O’Byrne’s commentating career is still flourishing, and that according to his Twitter feed he has appearances on the NHL network today and tomorrow at 6 pm ET.

I could tell you that John Michael Liles has been blowing up Twitter posting pics of his golfing outings with hockey brethren, supporting “his boy” Ryan O’Byrne, and watching Rockies games from the sweet seats. (Aside: if you aren’t following @hoosierjm26, you are missing out. He uses it like all borderline classy athletes should, while proving himself intelligent and slightly crazy. Great combo.)

All of the above is obviously true according to the ever-reputable Twitter. But guess what? That all pales in comparison to the image below, which sprang into existence after a Twitter conversation between myself, @crazygirlemy, and @Elwood_Blues42.

We were discussing the trainwreckiness of Matt Hunwick on the PP and the PK, leading to the conclusion that he was just bad on the ice, which led to the Disney on Ice comparison, which led to…

Hunwick on ice. You're welcome.

So, ladies and gentlemen, if you take anything away from this post, let it be this:

Twitter is so full of AWESOME that it occasionally explodes all over the place. If you haven’t already, you should totally get on board.

Mothers have very difficult jobs which are thankless 364 days a year. Today is the one day we set aside, in an attempt to make up for the other 364 when we are too busy being self-engrossed, to show our mothers exactly how much they mean to us.

This means presents. Beautiful, wonderful, expensive presents.

Until now. This year, if you are short on presents, merely print out this lovely bouquet and present it to your mother.

And if you are a mother, consider this my gift to you.

Happy Mother’s Day…enjoy the view!

Happy Mother's Day!

David Jones scores the game winning goal in overtime for Adam Foote and the Avs. (Photo by Katie Martinez.)

The Colorado Avalanche beat the Edmonton Oilers 4 – 3 in OT to close out the 2010-11 season at the Pepsi Center on Sunday afternoon.

It was an emotional day all around, as it marked not only the end of the season but the end of captain Adam Foote’s 20 year NHL career. » Continue reading “Every New Beginning Comes From Some Other Beginning’s End”

Sure, the Colorado Avalanche haven’t had much luck with stopping the Calgary Flames this season. But they are fresh off another shootout win (with HUGE attaboys to Ryan O’Reilly, Philippe Dupuis, and Jay McClement) and surely in the mood to play playoff spoiler to the team that slaughtered them 9 – 1 on Valentine’s Day. The Flames currently sit at 9th in the West, three points behind the 8th place Chicago Blackhawks with three games (including Sunday night) remaining.

And to that sentiment, I say a resounding GO AVS!

Series Record: Avalanche 1, Flames 4

The Calgary Flames have outscored the Avalanche 26 – 13 in their five games. The Avs haven’t beaten the Flames since October 28, 2010, and they had to score 6 goals to do so.

The good news is that the Avs have actually scored 13 goals against the Flames this season. Not bad. The men still in the line up who have come up big for the Avalanche include Brandon Yip, Daniel Winnik, Mark Olver, and Cody McLeod.

The Flames have pretty much scored at will against the Avalanche, with everyone getting in on the action. Niklas Hagman, Tim Jackman, Matt Stajan, Olli Jokinen, Alex Tanguay, Curtis Glencross, Mikael Backlund, David Moss, Tom Kostopoulos, Jarome Iginla, David Moss, Anton Babchuck, Mark Giordano, Rene Bourque, and Ales Kotalik have all scored goals in the season series.

The most often-seen goaltenders in the series are Peter Budaj for the Avs and Mikka Kiprusoff for the Flames.

Keep an eye on Ryan O’Reilly, Philippe Dupuis, Brandon Yip, Matt Duchene, and Jarome Iginla.

Ryan O’Reilly had an absolutely killer game on Friday night. A goal, an assist, and the shootout winner. I’m so happy that this hard working kid is finally getting some offensive production and the recognition that goes with it. O’Reilly has earned every single ounce of it and more. I’m sure the competitive O’Reilly will want to keep this swing going against the Flames tonight.

Philippe Dupuis has found himself in a bit of an awkward place this season. He played too well in camp to not make the team, and his grinding style of play has certainly improved the team. But with a plethora of centers and Dupuis’ low offensive numbers he has found himself in the press box a lot lately. Perhaps scoring the first goal against Phoenix on Friday night will get him the ice time his play deserves.

To call Brandon Yip invisible lately is only a little bit of an understatement. He has scored a mere 5 points since January 1. He has been productive against the Flames, however, scoring two goals in the season series. If he would like to show up and maybe put one in the net tonight, that would be terrific.

Matt Duchene was not a scoring part of the Avs’ win over the Coyotes on Friday. In fact, he only had one shot on net all night. My guess is he will not be happy with this and look to turn on his game tonight against Calgary.

Jarome Iginla just hit the 1000 career point mark Friday night when the Flames won in St. Louis. The guy is an obvious offensive threat and he has done more than his share of damage in Colorado. Iginla will be fighting extra hard to get his team to a playoff berth as well as getting his 40th season goal. I fully expect him to be putting on a show against Colorado tonight, probably co-starring ex-Av Alex Tanguay, who has scored 1 goal and 4 assists in the past two games.

For your viewing/listening pleasure:

The puck drops at the Pepsi Center at 6:00 pm MDT. The television broadcast can be seen on Altitude, and the Altitude radio broadcast will be on Denver radio at AM 950 and online through NHL Game Radio.

The 2010-11 Colorado Avalanche season is rapidly drawing to a close. It has been somewhat of a train wreck leaving fans all over the world feeling a little defeated. The players surely feel the same way, now playing merely for pride and next season’s opportunities. It would be excellent to see the boys come out skating hard and playing to win, giving themselves a true chance to spoil the playoff hopes of a division rival.

Just in case you didn’t catch it before…GO AVS!

Thursday night the Colorado Avalanche welcome the Nashville Predators to the Pepsi Center for the last time this season.

I’m sure Avalanche fans will all join me in issuing a simultaneous “it’s about time.”

Nashville has roundly dominated Colorado so far this season. As they currently hold a playoff spot by a mere two points, you can bet they will come to the Pepsi Center determined to score on the Avs as often as Finch hoped to score with Stifler’s mom. (Any guesses as to which movie I watched last night? Anyone?) » Continue reading “Smashville Looks To Complete Season Domination of Colorado”

In spite of an early look of dominance, the Colorado Avalanche ultimately fell to the Anaheim Ducks and the greatness of Teemu Selanne 5 – 4.

First Period:

At 3:34, the unthinkable happened. Milan Hejduk sent a beauty of a pass to Ryan O’Reilly on an Avalanche power play and O’Reilly put it in the back of the Ducks’ net. The Avs opened the game with a 1 – 0 lead.

Not even two minutes later Hejduk made another brilliant pass, but this time Matt Duchene was the recipient. He made an absolutely gorgeous move to get around Ryan Getzlaf and made the score 2 -0. The Avalanche managed to keep the Ducks scoreless through the first.

Let me say that again: the Avs led 2 – 0 at the end of the first period.

» Continue reading “Selanne Leads Ducks’ Domination Of Avs”

Cameron Gaunce in a last-minute call up defended teammate Mark Olver against Mike Komisarek in Thursday night's game. (Photo by JessicaAvsFan.)

After winning their previous two games in a shootout, the Colorado Avalanche lost in regulation to the visiting Toronto Maple Leafs 4 – 3. But the story of the game was the first period hit by Mike Komisarek on teeny tiny Mark Olver, and call up Cameron Gaunce taking on the slightly grumpy Komisarek immediately afterward. The secondary story was the Avs playing better than I anticipated.

First Period:

There has been much hand-wringing in Colorado this season because the generally terrible defense allows so many short handed goals (11, according to hockey-reference.com). Well finally during a Cody McLeod roughing penalty Daniel Winnik added a SHG tally to the Avalanche “for” column. He had help from EJ and McClement, and for a brief shining 4.5 minutes the Avs led the Maple Leafs 1 – 0.

About three minutes after the goal Jonas Holos made a pass up ice to Mark Olver in spite of Mike Komisarek being lined up on Olver about 8 steps away. Olver turned and ducked a bit to get the pass and Komisarek lined him up. Olver literally bounced off Komisarek like a rag doll and crawled off the ice but didn’t make it to the bench. Cameron Gaunce, who was just called up from Lake Erie, stood up for his teammate and took on Komisarek. For more on my opinions on the matter, skip ahead to the analysis section. » Continue reading “Wow What A Hit…Oh There Was A Game, Too”

Milan Hejduk gets the shootout winner for the Avs in his 900th game. (Photo by @JessicaAvsFan.)

Two wins in a row. Two. That makes a streak, correct? So the Colorado Avalanche are on a two game winning streak after Milan Hejduk’s shootout goal and Brian Elliott’s superb late play led them to a 5 – 4 victory over the visiting Columbus Blue Jackets.

There are many adjectives to describe this. I’ll go with the one the Pepsi Center audio team played following Mark Olver Matt Duchene’s goal: “Sweet.”

First Period:

Honestly, the Avs weren’t particularly impressive at the beginning of the first. There wasn’t a lot of pep in their step and they looked a little…wait for it…lethargic. Two minutes in Rick Nash was allowed to skate unchallenged wherever he desired, which happened to be right in front of the net. He put an easy one on a nice little backhand past Elliott to give the Blue Jackets the early lead. Luckily for the Avs Ryan O’Reilly doesn’t know the meaning of the word quit and put a wrister past Steve Mason off a Matt Hunwick disruption, Kevin Porter pass and his own rebound six minutes into the period. The rest of the period was pretty uneventful, except for Columbus’ Antoine Vermette being penalized for “playing with a broken stick,” which amused me to no end. Sadly the Avs didn’t do anything on the power play and the period ended at a 1 – 1 tie. » Continue reading “Avalanche Refuse To Fall Apart, Best CBJ In Shootout”

The Calgary Flames are in hot pursuit of a playoff spot, sitting uncomfortably in ninth place in the West. They have also lost three games in a row. They really, really need to beat the Avs tonight.

The Colorado Avalanche have lost 19 of their last 20 games and are currently on a nine game skid. They can’t beat anyone but themselves. Their playoff hopes were dashed months ago. The only race they seem destined to win is to the bottom of the league (except Edmonton refuses to cooperate).

How do you think this game is going to go? » Continue reading “Avalanche Skate into Calgary to be Sacrificed to the Playoff Gods”

Want some good news, Avalanche fans?  Wednesday night will be the last time the Avalanche take on the Canucks in the 2010-11 season.

Series Record: Avalanche 1, Canucks 4.

So, rather than detail every single painful loss, I will recap all of the games as quickly as possible. Think band-aid.

In the five games these two clubs have played the Canucks have scored 16 goals. The Avs have scored 11. Putting up 11 goals against the best team in the league is actually not bad…though all of the games came before the legendary slump the Avs are currently riding out. » Continue reading “Last installment in the Series of Pain as Avalanche travel to Vancouver”