Farewell, euphoria.
Colorado ended a critical 5-game homestand in disappointing fashion, losing 6-3 to the Thrashers. The Avs, desperate for points and riding a momentum wave from a big comeback on Tuesday, came out firing. Unfortunately, they were firing blanks. Not one of their 14 1st period shots got by Thrashers G Kari Lehtonen. Meanwhile, their focused attempt to slow down Marian Hossa and Ilya Kovulchuk lasted about 10 minutes. By the midway point of the opening frame, the game had taken on a high-flying feel. Jose Theodore was not able to match his performance against the Panthers, and when the dust settled after 20 minutes, the Thrashers had a commanding 3-0 lead.
Anyone watching had a fairly solid idea that Lehtonen wasn’t going to give up much to the Avs. Indeed, he ended up with 45 saves on the night. And, of course, the Avs couldn’t keep Atlanta to just 3 goals. Instead of mounting a comeback in the 2nd, the Avs were outscored 2-1, and opened the third period with an insurmountable 5-1 hole to climb out of. The did manage to goals - both on the PP - to make it 5-3, but it was far too little, too late as Hossa put it away with an empty netter at the 18:05 mark.
Colorado had a challenging schedule in January (all but two games against playoff teams) and aquitted themselves well (16 pts in 12 games). This 5-game road trip to start February was supposed to build from that before the Avs embarked on a brutal road trip (18 of the final 28 games are on the road). Instead, Colorado went 2-3 and lost ground in the playoff chase. And they are losing the battle at what used to be their strength - even strength play. Earlier, Colorado would roll over teams at 5-on-5. In the last 6 games, the Avs are -9 at even strength. In the 1st half of the season, the Avs players were, collectively +67 with just two players in the negative (Leopold at -2 and Parros at -1). In the 2nd half? -64, with just 3 players in the black (Sauer, McLean and Leopold all at +1). Brett Clark was +8 in the first 41 games, -12 in the 13 games since. Skrastins: +5, -7. Sakic: +9, -4. The Avs are no longer the force they were at even strength and that is what is sinking this ship.
EV Lines
Brad May returned as expected (he played pretty well too). Quenneville went with 7 defensemen again, with Klee again taking on both forward and defensive responsibilities. Brad Richardson was scratched to make room for May.
C Sakic, LW Wolski, RW Brunette: 14:35 ATOI (EV), 0 pts (EV), 8 shots, -6
C Stastny, LW Svatos, RW Hejduk: 10:31 ATOI (EV), 0 pts (EV), 8 shots, -3
C Arnason, LW McLean, RW Laperriere: 14:33 ATOI (EV), 3 pts (EV), 15 shots, -3
C Guite, LW May, RW Klee: 11:07 ATOI (EV), 0 pts (EV), 10 shots, -1
D Clark & D Skrastins: 17:19 ATOI (EV), 0 pts (EV), 2 shots, -5
D Leopold & D Vaananen: 12:58 ATOI (EV), 0 pts (EV), 2 shots, -2
D Liles & D Sauer: 13:02 ATOI (EV), 0 pts (EV), 3 shots, -1
Quick Hits
- Karlis Skrastins was honored before the game as he broke Tim Horton’s ironman streak for defensemen (487 consecutive games played). Two of the late Horton’s daughters were on the ice, and I was particularly impressed with the way Skrastins seemed to make extra effort to thank the two of them.
- I have to expect the 7-defenseman thing will end with the next game (Dallas). With the way the ice time has gone, it sure looks like Ossi Vaananen will be the odd man out. X-Factor here, though, is the trade deadline. Ossi is probably one of our better, tradeable commodities. So, perhaps he’ll play as a showcase to interested teams.
- 54 games into the season, Jordan Leopold became the 4th Av defenseman to get a PP point.
- Thanks to the NHL’s ridiculous schedule, I don’t know much about Thrashers D Garnet Exelby. But that was heck of a play he made in the 2nd period. First, he leveled Paul Stastny with a hard - clean - hit. Then, he stood his ground as both Ian Laperriere and Brad May ran into him, and, ultimately, ended up on their asses. Exelby 3, Avs 0.
In that whole game was there even five minutes spent in the neutral zone?
Defense continues to be their weakness. While I don’t care to see two offensive minded defensemen paired up, there were some positive things happening defensively when Leopold and Liles were on the ice together in the 3rd period. It’s past time put Clark and Skrastins in a 2nd pairing role if those guys are going to be joined at the hip. If they can play the minutes I’d like to see Leopold and Liles on the first pairing. Put Klee with Sauer on the last pairing and throw in the towel on Vannanen while looking for a good stay at home defenseman for the left side during the offseason or at the trade deadline.
Tradeable commodities for me are; Svatos, Brunette, Vannanen, Sauer and if the deal is sweet enough, Hejduk.
Pretty similar list to me, Dario, although I would add Arnason and Richardson.
Quick comment regarding Exelby - that was definitely impressive on his side, but man, what a poor showing of Avs “tough guys.” Both May and Laperriere got shrugged aside and couldn’t even hold their own footing. Nothing says “Your team is physically dominant” like both “tough guys” getting knocked over as they try to go after the other team’s tough guy. Ugh, that was a depressing sight.
Regarding tradeable commodities; the obvious entry to that list has to be Theodore, but he’s almost not tradeable because nobody would want him. I’d actually like to see Brunette stay, as long as he doesn’t cost too much, as he’s one of the few physically strong forwards we have, and has great hands around the net. He can make room for the younger guys down low.
Arnason is just too much of a Jekyl/Hyde situation. Some games he looks like Daniel Briere and some games he looks like… well, Tyler Arnason.
I can’t figure out why Svatos hasn’t done anything this year. Anybody got any ideas on that?
And as usual, any trade that would bring Tanguay back I would pretty much kill an animal on live TV to make happen.
DD, I put a more extended opinion on tradables at http://avalanche-country.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1119 and I give detail as to why Arnason and Richardson aren’t on my list.
It was really interesting watching the bench of both teams last night at the game. During the Skrastins ceremony May was leaned over the boards talking to Sutton from Atlanta. He kept sitting down and getting back up to poke his head around the glass to talk to him. My guess is that May wanted to schedule a fight for their first shift out. Call it May’s Deadmarch syndrom if you will. Sutton didn’t take the bait at all and watching Hartley on the bench he was yapping at the refs during a lot of May’s shifts. Especially at the end of the game when Lappy, May and Sakic(!) shifted on the ice for an offensive zone faceoff. Atlanta in a very un-Hartely like fashion weren’t about to take the bait last night. Hartley read the crowd nicely and there was no reason to give the Avs a lift after that fisrt period with a fight.
Svatos isn’t doing much this year for a couple of reasons. First, he’s lost his nasty edge and physical play. That goes against every bit of common sense for a guy that’s so small but it’s what got him going last year and fed his game. Second, he has got the “yips” big time. When the puck gets on his stick he’s like a car on rail road tiles. He “expertimented” with a longer stick during the preseason but went back to the shorter stick. The short stick is great for getting shots off around your feet, and getting the puck up quickly, it can even be effective when cycling the puck on the boards but that’s not his game. Anyway, when you get a really short stick like that it’s like having a short golf club. The angle of the blade to the stick goes up. To give an extreme example, if the average player has a 45 degree angle from the blade to the shaft, Svatos has something closer to 90 degrees. So even if you get the puck on your stick with a forecheck, it just rolls under your blade the further you stretch. So in sum, he’s a very one deminsional player. The puck fed to him on his stick withing six feet of the net. He can’t even beat defensemen one on one anymore because the puck keeps sliding off his stick. All these things have destroyed his small mans disease which is what made him so great last year. He played a brand of pissed off hockey and that edge is totally gone.
Svatos this year is carrying the puck much more than last year…and it doesn’t work for him. He really does need to be fed the puck in front of the net, and it’s hard to build consistency with that. It worked well for him last year. This year, not so much. And, really, I think that’ll be how his career goes - when paired with a great center, he’ll put up great numbers, but will struggle when he has to do so much of the heavy lifting.
Great observations on the Atlanta bench. I know the Thrashers have a rep for getting involved in some ugly games, and with May and Lappy running around trying to start shit all night, I thought this might get interesting in the 3rd with the Avs out of it. Kudos to Hartley for keeping his team focused. All the more reason for me to miss him.