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Avalanche Recaps

I only need three words for this recap

14 Comments

• On 10.31.08 jibblescribbits said:

  Here’s the silver lining:

  All that “Rayroft is 2-0 therefore should replace Budaj” talk should stop after tonight.

• On 10.31.08 EricTheRed said:

  Sorry man, there is no silver lining in “the goaltender we picked to start 25% of the games is going to lose. Badly. Every Time. Except for the first two.” Oh, PS, no silver lining in the fact that the rest of the team will give no help to him, or anyone else, even if its martin brodeur, patrick roy, or the reincarnation of georges vezina, in net. I’ll go cry in my whisky now. Hope you bought some beer for this one. Dispassionate analysis to follow tomorrow, from someone besides me. Most probably a chucklehead. God I think the highlight of this season is not seeing sandy clough….

• On 10.31.08 David Driscoll-Carignan said:

  when they started the game and introduced the goalies, McNab said something like “and Andrew Raycroft has been a perfect 2-0″

  I remember thinking “he may be 2-0, but he’s been far from perfect”. and that was before the game started.

• On 10.31.08 Mike @ MHH said:

  I swear McNab has a personal motto to embrace jinxes like long-lost children. He goes out of his way during broadcasts to sling whammies around.

• On 10.31.08 thedoctor said:

  yeah, the avs weren’t exactly dominating out there last night, but they were playing well enough to win, with some good chances. Then Teh Raycrap occurred.

• On 10.31.08 Inglewood Jack said:

  Yeah that three word summary about does it. But I blame management for the Avs goaltending issues. If you think about it, since this team has moved to Colorado they have not developed one goalie who has evolved into a reliable every day stopper with either this team or whatever team they moved onto. Fiset, Thibault, Sauve, Denis, Aebischer, Kolesnik….will Budaj change that? As a result they’ve had to resort to recycling cast off free agents from other teams (Theodore, Raycroft). The one trade for Roy covered this team for a long time but the Avs haven’t been able to find a goalie in their system who was ready to step up an be their next go-to goalie. Budaj has a long way to go to be that guy and he may never be.

• On 10.31.08 GEO said:

  When it looked like Raycroft got stung by a shot up high, I immediately was thinking that I didn’t want Tyler Weinman as the backup and that I was happy Raycroft was the #2.

  Then three pucks got by him in an embarassing way and I decided that Tyler Weinman wouldn’t be that bad.

• On 10.31.08 Bob in Boulder said:

  Raycroft only seemed a few seconds slow on a few of those goals. Which is, of course, comically awful for any goalie at any level, and in the NHL, will probably net you about a .600 save percentage, which probably won’t win too many games.

  Holy cow …. I didn’t know he was *THIS* bad.

• On 10.31.08 ClaudeLemieux said:

  Raycroft was awful, no doubt, but the story of the game shouldn’t end there because nobody else on the team made a case for the Avs to win either.

  Raycroft had an Arnason night.
  Everybody else was like David Jones, at a point or two in the game, you noticed they did a nice thing or two, but it never amounted to anything.

• On 10.31.08 Dario said:

  Hard one to decifer really. I mean, your defense has to let those big shots from the top of the circles (on the outside) go and rely on your goaltender. If you they cheat up higher on those guys they leave the middle of the ice open.

  The Avs should not be losing to teams when they shut down Nash/Huselius and Iginlia/Bertuzzi. Those guys account for a lion’s share of their teams production. The Avs seems to be totally stuck through the neutral zone. They can’t get any speed going through the neutral zone and are floundering when they have to chip past the defense and set up. Arnason had his best game, not because of the power play goal but because he was going in to the corners for the puck and working it, not Svatos. He’s got to make his teammates better, instead of trying to make himself better. I think if he continues to do that he can get that good karma coming back (IE “The Hockey Gods”).

  The RPM crew are still deadly but hopefully with more and more games together than can learn to adjust their game when they face different defensive strategies. They love to pass and cross and set up scoring chances through the slot. But when all five defenders collapse in front of the goaltender then it’s ugly goal scoring time. Get the puck on net and chip away for rebounds. If the passing lanes just aren’t there then I think you need to play Bill Guerin hockey (shoot the puck first no matter who might seem open).

  That was a frustrating loss just because no other part of the game besides goaltending was particularly poor. But, that’s hockey and when you face a game like that you’ve got to make adjustments. Granato needs to improve that part of his coaching. A patient and positive approach is a good thing when it’s a tight give and go affair (IE Buffalo). However, when your team is playing an inferior brand of hockey in relation to your opponent regardless of the score it is time to make those between period adjustments that Scotty Bowman was so great at. Granato doesn’t have to be Bowman but his team shouldn’t play one period of ineffective hockey and follow up that period with another period that looks like a carbon copy of the previous one.

• On 10.31.08 jibblescribbits said:

  Eric:

  I think you underestimated the level of sarcasm in my “silver lining” comment.

• On 10.31.08 EricTheRed said:

  Oh, I think I just wanted to vent…. ps i read the mhh game thread late last night, damn, you should go on the road with that act, the laughs almost made me forget the game. Thanks for the pic, too.

• On 11.03.08 Pension Plan Puppets said:

  Well, you can’t say that we didn’t warn you.

• On 11.03.08 eyebleaf said:

  I think the three words you’re looking for are:

  FUCK.
  ANDREW.
  RAYCROFT.

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