Anaheim vs Colorado tonight. It’s such a big game that I’ve brought back the live blog shtick for the evening. I’ve got the Ducks’ feed, John Ahlers and Brian Hayward.
Jose Theodore against Jonas Hiller
First Period
20:00 Sakic, Forsberg and Hejduk start, with Sauer and Foote on the blueline.
19:42 Bertuzzi is booed by the Pepsi Center crowd.
18:54 Next over the boards is Arnason, McLeod and David Jones (who hits Schneider hard behind the Anaheim net). Liles and Hannan are together on D.
18:02 Finger is in the game, with Ruslan Salei. Unless Q is going with 7 D, Jordan Leopold is the healthy scratch. Stastny is playing with Brunette and Wolski – no changes for the first 3 lines.
17:15 The 4th line is unchanged as well – Guite, Parker and Laperriere. Parros and Parker are both out there.
16:51 Lappy runs at old friend Kent Huskins, but misses him.
16:28 Arnason steals the puck from Brad May. Accidentally, I assume.
15:54 Pronger makes a great headman pass to Corey Perry. Perry breaks in all alone on Theodore, and Theo makes a great pad save.
15:07 Perry trips Sakic against the boards
14:51 And then Moen gets rough with Hannan in the same spot. Can’t let them start taking liberties like this…
14:44 Chris Kunitz hooks Brunette on the faceoff. Avs get a powerplay.
14:39 It’s Sakic, Salei, Stastny, Forsberg and Hejduk.
13:51 Stastny fires from point blank – Hiller makes a good save.
12:55 Other than that shot, this has been a lousy PP.
12:36 Finger is still wearing the shield he added the last time he played. I wonder if this is going to be a permanent change.
11:19 Parker and Parros are on the ice at the same time again.
10:06 Selanne hooks Sakic to the ice and the Kunitz flies in and knees Sakic in the helmet. Kunitz seems to get the worst of it, as he skates a bit gingerly to the bench.
9:30 Another Anaheim penalty, Perry slashes Forsberg on the hand, resulting in a hooking call.
9:03 Pahlsson rockets a missle off the crossbar. We’ve had no PP pressure tonight.
8:36 Oh, big wrist shot by Sakic from inside the point. Great glove save by Hiller.
4:48 One more PP for Colorado. Pronger goes off for hooking. It was a bit of a borderline call. I communicate that opinion with words, Pronger does so by kicking the puck, landing an extra two minutes for unsportsmanlike conduct.
4:14 Hejduk is blatantly tripped by Beauchemin, but, incredulously, there is no call. This should be a 5 on 3.
3:24 Foote and Salei are on the point.
2:07 Jones is getting some PP time. This PP has been the best of the night so far.
0-0Â Â after 1. The Avalanche had 8 minutes of PP time, but have nothing to show for it on the scoreboard.
2nd Period
19:03 Hiller makes another great save on Stastny.
18:50 The 1st Avalanche penalty. Holding on Hannan. This will be good – the Avs will get a chance to see how to work a PP…
18:40 Getzlaf trips Guite – this is the 3rd uncalled trip of the night. Is it no longer a penalty?
17:19 Dough Weight is CRUSHED by Jeff Finger.
16:30 To spite my PP comment, the Avs look terrific killing off that penalty.
15:11 Hooking on Salei. Extremely borderline call, but it’s almost identical to the Pronger penalty in the first (it’s even at the same place on the ice).
13:53 The Avs get a 2 on 1 break, but Hejduk is offsides. I don’t know that there’s another player in the NHL who goes offsides more than Hejduk. The good news is that Kunitz hooked Hejduk moments before, negating the penalty to Salei.
11:25 Big save by Theodore on Kunitz.
9:46 After a whistle for a frozen puck, Sean O’Donnell sends McLeod flying head first into the net.
8:01 Wolski scores! Stastny carries in, drops to Brunette on the right wing, who crosses a pass to Wolski in the slot. Wolski slides it 5-hole for the 1-0 lead. He looks extremely relieved to have finally scored.
7:09 Arnason breaks in alone on Hiller. Big save by Hiller – he’s been terrific tonight.
5:34 Getzlaf makes a great check on…Rob Niedermeyer.
5:01 Great save by Theo on Getzlaf. He’s also been terrific tonight.
4:19 Suddenly, the pace of this game has ramped up considerably.
3:54 Huskins is so hit-worthy, even Sakic gets a check on him
3:43 Moen returns the favor by decking Sakic. That can’t go ignored, can it?
1:40 Sauer crushes Brad May. I enjoyed that. Immensely.
0:00 A very entertaining period. Colorado has a 1-0 lead.
3rd Period
19:47 “Finger rims it around”. *sigh*
19:20 3rd straight penalty against the Avs – hooking on Salei.
16:04 The Pepsi Center folks are playing Black Betty. You can’t do that. It belongs to the Bruins. Sorry. Find something else.
13:09 Perhaps it’s a subconscious thing, but Forsberg seems to be much more tentative with his skating tonight than he did on Tuesday. It’s like he’s stopping short of taking a full stride.
11:07 Theodore is keeping the Avs in the lead. He’s been brilliant. The Ducks are definitely starting to take control against the prevent defense. Predictable.
10:13 McLeod makes a huge hit on – who else – Huskins. Jones gets a shot off and McLeod tries to bank the rebound in off of Hiller. Smart play by McLeod.
9:49 Perry is in the Anaheim locker room – he got hurt in a scrum in front of the net.
8:26 “Finger rims it around” for the 2nd time this period. I know it’s my birthday and all, but seriously, John Ahlers, you don’t need to keep doing that.
3:09 This may be a good place to point out that the Avalanche won exactly one year ago on my birthday, 2-0 (when Budaj shut out the Bruins).
:55 Hiller is out.
:15 The Ducks get called for holding the stick of Laperriere. Kunitz. He gets a misconduct penalty as well, and he gets an extra 15 seconds of shower time.
That’s it. Theodore has his 2nd shutout of the season and the Avalanche finally beat the annoying Ducks.
First, Happy Birthday.
Second - I listed to the game online, and from what I could tell it was very intense! I think the Ducks may be the dirtiest team in the NHL this year, and if things continue this way, I think they’ll become the “next” Red Wings.
The guys on the radio seemed confident that Smitty will be back, any thoughts?
yeah, Brian Hayward talked about it quite a bit. He said Smyth was already spending time on a stationary bike which is usually a good sign that a player is close to coming back. At first he said it sounded like Smyth might be back “soon”, but then seemed to think about it for a second and then changed that to “by the playoffs”.
The only other shutout for Theo this season came the same week I got one in my beer league. I got one this last Sunday, and Theo delivers again. So you see, it’s not you, it’s me. Just thought we should clear that up…
THEN DAMN MIKE! Get going on the shutouts. I expect shutouts for the rest of the season.
:-p
too right. I don’t expect you to let in a goal again this season, Mike.
And I’m sure DD could be talked round to having some more birthdays just to make sure. :p And yeah, happy birthday.
I’m an old man as it is, pingu!
Its ok, DD. I know the perfect way for you to get more shutouts. Pull a Luango and get huge pads. I’m sure the other teams in your beer league wouldn’t mind too much.
Let’s get one thing straight, I didn’t post a comment about my shutouts on DD’s blog to suggest that I have some wierd coincidental parallels to Jose Theodore. I didn’t post it to show up DD on his B-day (belated happy, BTW). I posted it so that everybody would tell me how awesome I am. Instead, I’ve gotten placed in a crucible of unfathomable pressure to achieve even MORE shutouts in my beer league season. This backfired horribly.
FWIW, the name of my team is the Screamin’ Pylons, so that should give you an indication of how likely we are to acrue more goose-eggs this season. We do play this team one more time though, so maybe the odds are better.
Anyway, back on topic. DD is old. That is all.
Screamin’ Pylons is a GREAT name
Agreed, DD.
for my two new fans:
Well, that didn’t work.
Here’s the linky:
http://i51.photobucket.com/albums/f394/Eidolon31/Screamin20Pylonsedit.jpg
where do I get one?
Designed by yours truly. Actually, we might have some significant turnover from this season’s team, so if you’re nice to me, I may throw a sweater in for ya when we do the reorder…
What a great name for a hockey team.
At 15:07 of the 1st Perry actually slew footed Sakic. Then of course he later slashed Forberg. What a dirty player that guy is. Guess he got what he deserved.