Well, if we’re going to lose to poor teams like the Columbus Blue Jackets, surely we can lose to the good ones too, right? The Avs played their best hockey of the week against San Jose. Unfortunately, that isn’t saying much and it still wasn’t good enough to beat the Sharks.
It looked like it was going to be a terrible game. Although the Avs had some early jump, the Sharks got on the board first at the 7:02 mark. Milan Milachek too advantage of some extra skating room granted by John-Michael Liles and Scott Hannan and converted Joe Pavelski’s cross-ice pass into a laser beam of a shot over Peter Budaj’s shoulder. Honestly, that goal was just one of those goals that you can’t do a lot about; Michalek’s shot was that good (you can read that sentence in Peter McNab’s voice for added entertainment value, but it’s still true). Before the Avs could get their heads around that tough goal, Sharks defenseman Christian Ehrhoff broke in hard against Brett Clark before dishing to the front of the net. All night long, San Jose’s forwards crashed the net relentlessly, and this play was just the first to connect. The puck found Joe Thornton on the weak side. He couldn’t put it in, but he was able to tip it to Devin Setogouchi. Just like that, the Avs were down 2-0 before the 10 minute mark of the first period.
Colorado cut the lead to 2-1 at the 14:24 mark. Paul Stastny (in one of the few good plays he made last night) won an offensive draw to the left of Evgeni Nabokov and dropped it back to Jordan Leopold on the point. Leopold let a good shot go and it deflected off of Ehrhoff’s stick and past Nabby into the net. The Avs continued to pressure late in the first, but couldn’t come up with the equalizer.
Whatever momentum the Avalanche took into the locker room during the first intermission evaporated when they hit the ice in the 2nd. San Jose was all over the Avs in the 2nd, and only some stellar saves by Peter Budaj kept the deficit at one goal. Thanks to Budaj, the Avs weathered the early storm and started to get pressure of their own…and then disaster struck. The Avalanche iced the puck around the 12 minute mark of the 2nd period. Last year, there would have been a TV timeout there to give the team some rest. This year, no timeout. Pershaps since Joe Sakic was one of the guys stuck on the ice, Tony Granato opted to save his timeout. Sakic won the draw cleanly, pushed it back to Scott Hannan…who promptly managed to turn the puck over leading another Setogouchi goal. The Avalanche were gassed, and looked it on the play. But, if the TOI report is correct (and they often aren’t), Hannan was only 44 seconds into his shift (while Salei and Sakic were both over 1:30 into theirs). Either way, he needs to get that puck out of the zone. That goal was the killer. It wasn’t the eventual game winner, but it was the one that cooked the Avs’ proverbial goose on the night. And since we’re talking about fatigue, it’s also worth pointing out that, with almost identical EV ice time, the Avs had 38 less shifts than the Sharks. That means our guys were out there for a longer shifts. With the depth we have, that makes me scratch my head.
Down 3-1, the Avs came out in the 3rd the way they should have come out in the 2nd. They dominated from the early going, and got an early goal from Milan Hejduk (playing with Sakic and Wolski, as Tony Granato shuffled the lines frequently in the 2nd half of the game). But just a few minutes later, with the Sharks applying substantial offensive zone pressure, Adam Foote outletted to Darcy Tucker along the sideboards. Unfortunately, Tucker’s stick was laying in pieces on the ice. Former Avalanche Rob Blake was aware of this and took the opportunity to pinch in. Blake took advantage of Tucker’s hesitation (just get down and sweep the thing out, Darcy) to steal the puck. He threw it on net where, of course, two Sharks were headed. Michalek would get the tap in to make it 4-2. And that would do it. Liles scored (on a blistering shot through a Ryan Smyth screen) to make it 4-3, but Ryane Clowe answered to make it 5-3.
All night long, the Avs were pretty-good-but-not-as-good-as-the-Sharks. Several of the Avs looked good offensively - Smyth, Wolski and Sanjaya Arnason, for example - but didn’t end up with anything on the scoreboard (well, Wolski had an assist). It’s not news that the Avs haven’t gotten terrific goaltending and defense, but the offense should be shouldering some of the blame as well.
Reportedly, Ian Laperriere lashed out at the defense after the game (thanks to Shane for pointing me to that). Hopefully, that acts as a wakeup call to the team, because several blueliners (Salei, Foote and Leopold) are not playing as well as they are capable of. On the other hand, it could also cause a rift that divides the team. I’m very curious to see how things pan out.
Lines
In the 2nd period, Tony Granato begin to tinker with his lines. Marek Svatos skated some shifts with Joe Sakic before moving up to the Stastny line in the 3rd period (with Hejduk moving to the Sakic line). Over the night, Svats played with Tucker and Arnason, Tucker and Sakic, Sakic and Wolski, Stastny and Smyth and, finally, Stastny and Wolski. Five different lines in 21 shifts.
Granato shortened the bench in the 3rd, and it’s curious to see who played and who didn’t. Ben Guite had just 1 shift, David Jones and Cody McLeod had just 2. Meanwhile, Darcy Tucker had 5 - one more than Arnason’s 4. Curious.
Quick Hits
- The Avs have scored first just twice this year. They are the NHL’s worst in that category.
- There have been no empty net goals in an Avalanche game this year.
- Speaking of empty, quite a few seats were empty, as the reported attendance was just 15,452.
Next Up
The Avalanche visit Joel Quenneville and the Blackhawks tonight (which makes Granato’s decision to shorten the bench even more curious). The Hawks are 5-3-3 on the season, 3 points ahead of Colorado in the standings.
This all sounds vaguely familiar
Calling Tucker’s 5 shifts in the 3rd “curious” compared to the limited shifts of Guite, Jones and McLeod is being charitable. Tucker has officially replaced Arnason on my biggest liability at forward list. He has been dreadful lately. Just fricken dreadful. As in cut by the Maple Leafs dreadful. Why on earth did they sign him again? He’s sort of like Lappy …. if Lappy didn’t care.
Agree BiB. Even though Foote made a terrible pass to him, Tuckers lack of effort on that 4th goal last night was pitiful. I can kind of forgive Foote, because it’s kind of instinctive to pass to the guy in the burgundy jersey,. But Tucker’s lack of effort was an awful cap to that one.
Also, did anyone else notice how much better Sakic and Wolski looked when they got a shift with Hejduk? That wasn’t lost on me.
While you can put some blame on the offense, you can’t really expect them to get 3-5 goals every single night. They have put enough goals in the net to win. The Defense is the big issue right now. Budaj was good last night, but when he did give up a rebound the defense was letting every Shark player crash the net to pounce on those rebounds. That resulted in at least two of the goals. At least two others were scored on passes that crossed about a foot in front of Budaj. If the defense doesn’t start playing the body, knocking people out, and clearing out rebounds this team is going to be frustrated all season long. Lappy was right to call out the defense last night they were horrible. When Sakic is the guy knocking people down in front of the net you know you have a problem.
definitely the D is the culprit, but the O doesn’t get a free pass. They have 6 goals in the last 4 games, or an average of 1.5. That won’t cut it.
So the D is bad… the Offense has been bad, and the goaltending has been relatively mediocre this season…
I now know what it’s like to be a Leafs fan, and it’s not a very happy place.
To me, Salei is the worst defenseman of the bunch right now and Leopold is a constant threat from the neutral zone and in to the offensive zone. That being said if it were my team to coach I’d swap Leopold and Clark straight up. Salei and Clark can serve as the 3rd pairing while Foote stays home for Leopold.
Or you could put Liles out with Foote and move Leopold up with Hannan.
In any combination, I think Salei should see the 3rd to 4th line forward shifts and be on the bottom of TOI charts. His instincts for clearing the puck and adjusting to Leopold’s moves are really poor. I think Salei is an upgrade over Skrastins over all but I can’t say he’s better defensively than Finger nor Sauer at this point. He’s got skills offensively but only in situations where he’s set up in the zone for one timers. He’s not a great puck moving defenseman by any means. When he combines that disability with a poor ability clear his own zone, then he’s really limited.
I made the comment to one of the guys in my office this morning that Foote has only been effective in one-on-one situations in the corners or below the goal line. Everywhere else (front of the net, breakouts, etc.) he hasn’t been anything resembling good, or even average. When you have a defenseman who gets elite minutes that can only do one thing elite-ly, then you have a huge problem.
Salei has been a trainwreck this season. He has a great night with his hits and poke checks, and then the next night he can’t handle a puck and seems confused by his partner. It’s schizo and it’s driving me nuts. At this point, could Tjarnqvist or Cumiskey be worse?
Totally agree with BiB.
Dario, I don’t get the deal with Salei. Right now, he sucks. I thought he played awesome since the Avs got him last year, but now I’m wondering if it was just a side effect of my Peter Forsberg in an Avalanche jersey high.
There are certainly enough defenseman playing badly to warrant giving Cumiskey some minutes. Granato can rotate the veterans out of the lineup and he and the Avalanche media machine can say it’s all part of a master plan to keep their veterans fresh through a long season.
I have a feeling we’ve already seen the best we’re going to see out of Salei.