If you went to bed early, you missed the only exciting part of the game: the final 3 minutes. Up until then, it was a Grade A snoozer, with each team getting just 23 shots on net. Colorado dominated (or Columbus was flat) for the first 50 minutes of the game. The Jackets finally woke up in the final half of the 3rd, but couldn’t quite complete the comeback.
Here’s some highlights of the game…
First Period:
15:25 Some guy from Columbus named Marc Methot (?) takes a run at Marek Svatos with elbows higher than a disco dancer. Svatos deftly ducks out of the way.
14:52 Brett Clark, maybe the most underrated D in hockey (note to self: get ready for the feedback on this one), makes a great play at the Columbus blueline, calmly circling back to avoid a defender, while keeping the play onside. The Avs don’t score on the play, but do get a scoring chance. Clark is so good at handling the puck, and I think the Avs would benefit from him carrying it more.
11:56 Jeff Finger runs Jason Chimera into the boards. Hard. Chimera chases Finger down, and the two fight. Chimera wins it pretty easily, but that doesn’t stop Finger from joining Mark Rycroft as the only Avalanche without a nose made of mincemeat to have a fighting major this year. Chimera gets an extra 2+10 for instigating.
7:51 Ron Hainsey for holding (against Rycroft). Turns out, this is the last penalty that Columbus would take on the night.
7:19 On the powerplay, Milan Hejduk drops it back to John-Michael Liles. Lile’s takes a shot, which gets deflected through Fredrik Norrena’s pads by Andrew Brunette camped in front of the paint. Colorado leads 1-0.
4:43 Jeff Finger levels someone inside the Columbus zone. That kind of hitting is refreshing to see.
2:41 Ken Klee gets called for a hold on Rick Nash. Columbus fails to convert on this one, on the way to an 0-4 night.
2nd Period
Maybe one of the most boring periods of hockey. For anyone not named Jeff Finger, that is. 12 shots total - 9 for Colorado, 3 for Columbus. Zzzzzz.
16:34 Curtis Glencross hits the crossbar on a shot.
2:15 Paul Stastny has a great scoring chance, but shoots wide of an open net. Stastny has been beyond terrific this year, but he seems to miss these kinds of shots quite often.
2:07 Stastny redeems himself. After the above play, Jeff Finger keeps the puck in at the blueline, passes it to Milan Hejduk, who gets it to Stastny in front of the net. This time, Stastny converts. Colorado leads 2-0, and Finger gets his first NHL point.
3rd Period:
18:40 This one already is more interesting than the last one. Rusty Klesla gets a hard hit on Joe Sakic in the corner. The normally unflappable Sakic was decidedly, um, flapped. He took a chop at Klesla’s skates after the hit, and had a bit more to say after the whistle. The teams all met at center ice to exchange recipes, and things calmed down almost immediately.
17:36 Ken Klee gets called for hooking, one of 3 Avalanche minors in the 3rd period. Colorado seems to have been taking an inordinate number of penalties in the final period lately.
15:43 Are they really playing Wilson-Phillips on the PA system? Seriously?
15:38 Today’s recap is otherwise completely empty of Ossi Vaananen criticism. I’ll break from that here to illustrate one thing I don’t like about Vaananen’s game. Just a few seconds before, Budaj freezes the puck, and, after the whistle, Manny Malhotra slams Vaananen to the ice. Ossi’s response is to…get up. Hell, he can’t even be bothered to cast a mean look in Malhotra’s direction. Over the last two seasons, I’ve seen players too close to an Avalanche goalie after the whistle with Vaananen on the ice, and often (not always), Ossi just stands there. Meanwhile, on the next faceoff, there’s a quick shot and another frozen puck. This time it’s Sauer on the ice, and - I think - Chimera in the crease. Sauer hacks at Chimera. They don’t fight - it doesn’t have to go to that extreme. Sauer was just letting the other team know they can’t take liberties in the crease like that, and that was it. Ossi Vaananen has to put the effort in to make that same message, and he doesn’t do it often enough.
13:10 Richardson and Hejduk get a 2 on 1 breakout - Richardson looks explosively fast on the play. Richardson shoots (I think pass was a better option there) and misses, but it’s a nice play nonetheless.
10:32 Rick Nash gets dumped by Ken Klee. Clean hit, but Nash is pissed after the play (probably at himself more than anything). Nash has struggled lately, which has Peter McNab depressed.
9:46 Geoff Platt falls with the puck inside the blueline, giving the Avs a 3 on 1 chance. Brett McLean makes a good pass to Marek Svatos by the goal crease, but Norrena makes a great read to stop it.
8:00 Paul Stastny gets called for hooking.
7:08 And Brett Clark for interference. Avs are 2 men short, and 2 key penalty killers are in the box (and another on IR). Kurt Sauer and Ken Klee start out along with normal 5 on 3 killer Joe Sakic. Columbus looks awful on the powerplay; it’s much easier to kill penalties when the other team doesn’t move.
2:09 Mark Rycroft makes it 3-0. Ben Guite steals the puck behind the Blue Jacket goal and passes it back to Rycroft. Rycroft gets his 2nd goal in as many games. Surely, this one is over.
1:56 Rick Nash makes it interesting, deflecting Hainsey’s shot past Peter Budaj.
28.5 And Nash makes it interestinger, scoring another goal to make it 3-2. The Jackets get one more chance as time is expiring, but can’t quite convert. Colorado wins. It shouldn’t have been this close, but it’s a win.
Lines
I don’t have my spreadsheet with me today to tally the stats. Brad May was traded, so Ben Guite gets back in the lineup, centering the 4th line. Also, Wolski and Richardson swap places on the first and second lines, a move that makes a lot of sense to me.
- Sakic, Wolski, Brunette
- Stastny, Richardson, Hejduk
- Arnason, McLean, Svatos
- Guite, Rycroft, Laperriere
- Clark, Sauer
- Klee, Vaananen
- Liles, Finger
Quick Hits
- The #1 guy in ice time - for both teams - was Kurt Sauer.
Richardson is +4 in the last 10 games. Considering how powerplay heavy the scoring has been and how many goals the Avs have given up over the last 10 games that’s a stronger number than it appears at first sight. I like him on either of the first two lines.
15:43 Are they really playing Wilson-Phillips on the PA system? Seriously?
Gold.
10:32 Rick Nash gets dumped by Ken Klee. Clean hit, but Nash is pissed after the play (probably at himself more than anything). Nash has struggled lately, which has Peter McNab depressed.
Pure Gold.
My favorite McNab moment last night was when Nash got behind Liles for a clear break away and Liles stops the pass with his skates McNab has the audacity to say, “Great play by Liles”. I hate, I mean HATE the praise that players get for saving their own bacon because they screwed up the fundamentals (ie Skrastins diving/almost trip penalty poke check).
Anyone who understands positional defense and how it’s supposed to be played would have admired the play of Jeff Finger and Adam Foote last night. With one clear exception. Foote got suckered in to a play by chasing Wolski up the side boards. None of his forwards came over to assist on the play and he didn’t/couldn’t get back to his position. It’s a beautiful thing when you can get defense to do that and the “chasing” starts. Columbus still has a lot of problems.
At 11:56, Jason Chimera became an enormous weakling in my book. Finger put a good hit on him and Chimera went into the boards. This is Hockey, it happens. Chimera stumbled getting up, at which point it seemed that he made his decision to save face and skate after the Rookie defensemen and start swinging away.
I give Finger a ton of credit for dropping the gloves and holding his own (and drawing the Penalty), and I give Chimera the middle finger for letting his pride steer him into hunting down a rookie d-man and start whaling away. Way to not be able to take a hit, Chimera.
I have to agree with DD on Clark:
—”14:52 Brett Clark, maybe the most underrated D in hockey (note to self: get ready for the feedback on this one), makes a great play at the Columbus blueline, calmly circling back to avoid a defender, while keeping the play onside. The Avs don’t score on the play, but do get a scoring chance. Clark is so good at handling the puck, and I think the Avs would benefit from him carrying it more.”
Unlike a guy like Breisbois I don’t get nervous when Clark has the puck. He sticks handles well and is often the guy beating defenders into the offensive zone (probably because they don’t expect him to take the puck into the zone like he does). And rarely does he make a bad pass that puts him in situation where he is chasing. I sometimes wonder what would happen if Q played Clark as a forward/7th D-man instead of Klee?
I didn’t see tha game, but in the few games I’ve seen I been imressed by Finger. He has make leaps and bounds since getting schooled on his first NHL shift. And unlike Cuminsky (at least in what I’ve seen) Finger is much more physical. He hits more, finishes checks better, and as of last night appears willing to drop the gloves when challenged.
Has it occured to anyone that perhaps Clark is looking exceptional recently because he’s not covering for his injured partner? Just something to chew on.
Hey DD. Your header picture hasn’t been showing up on your blog for the last few months. I figured you were probably aware of it but it’s been so long I’m not so sure now.
http://inthecheapseats.com/wp-content/themes/purple/images/header.jpg
Red X for me.
heh. thanks Dario.
there actually isn’t one…and I never got around to editing the theme.
should be fixed now. no more red x.
Yeah, looks good.
You’re doing such a good job on keeping up with the blog you might as well give new visitors a good first impression. There are a lot of blogs that just die on the vine as you well know.
Keep up the good work.
thanks for the compliment. I’d really like to improve the look, but I haven’t really had the time (or skill) to do it. a better appearance is pretty high on my todo list
Draft Dodger, as usual, excellent work. I don’t know how I would survive this season without your recap and commentary.
But how about a little more love for Andrew Brunette?
The man does things perfectly, especially the little things. What a nice little tip in he had for the first goal?
But more importantly, he singlehandedly saved the team from the most embarrassing loss (well blown 3 goal lead) of the season. With either 15 or 5 seconds left, and Budaj covering a post, a pass come right on top of the crease for an open Columbus shooter with a nice juicy open net.
But Mr. Reliable was there, and as the pass came, just managed to lift the Columbus Player’s stick, and prevent the pass reception. If everyone else put as much care into the details as Mr. Brunette, this team would be far better in the standings.