It was a game of redemption.
Marek Svatos took two momentum killing penalties (one leading to the first Edmonton goal), prompting the Joel Quenneville WTF face from Tony Granato. But his amazing one-on-four deke with 25 seconds remaining drew a critical penalty to put the Avs on a 5-on-3.
Darcy Tucker also took a boneheaded penalty (3 of the 4 penalties on the Avs tonight were offensive zone penalties), but made up for it when he deflected Jordan Leopold’s point shot past an enraged Dwayne Roloson for the game tying goal. A little later, he was the improbable hero after scoring the winner in the shootout.
Ryan Smyth has struggled against his former team, but was one of the best players on the ice tonight. In the first period he scored what I believe is his first goal against Edmonton (too lazy to look that up, so sorry if I have that wrong). And he completely unraveled Roloson late in the game. Roloson was so focused on trying to punish Smyth and Tucker in the crease that he botched Tucker’s tying goal. It was a good deflection, but Roloson was out of position and that’s because of Smyth. If I’m not mistaken, Smyth has caused Roloson to melt down in previous games; perhaps Edmonton should go with one of their other goalies against the Avs.
Peter Budaj was, once again, sensational. For the 3rd straight game, he got better as the game progressed (this will be the subject of my next MHH article). As of this morning, the official scoresheet has him as the 2nd star behind Roloson, which, of course, is complete crap. But during the broadcast, I believe the listed Budaj as the first star, so I’m hoping that’s just an error.
And Brett Clark and Jordan Leopold both had some cringe-worthy giveaways at critical junctures in the 3rd period. Clark saved his own bacon on one of his, when he literally passed the puck to Shawn Horcoff in front of an empty net. Luckily, he was able to block Horcoff’s shot with the skate, keeping the Avs in the game and giving them a chance to tie it a few seconds later…on Leopold’s point shot.
Two guys that didn’t find redemption:
David Jones, playing on the 4th line, had a big defensive miscue early in the game leading to a scoring chance and then got caught out of position and couldn’t stop Tom Gilbert’s pass to Robert Nilsson on the first Edmonto goal. Jones didn’t play well, and didn’t play much. He rode the pine throughout the 3rd period and in OT.
TJ Hensick also had a poor game, after 3 very good ones. Like Svatos, his penalty in the 2nd period killed some major momentum the Avs were building at the time. He was missing passes all over the place and for the 3rd straight game he got killed in the faceoff circle. It’s telling that he was not used in the shootout but Tucker and Smyth were…
You are correct that the goal by Smyth was his first against his former team, he now has scored a goal against all 30 teams in the league.
The broadcast did have Budaj as the #1 star, so I believe the score sheet is wrong. Why is Reddox the #3 star and not Tucker? it really should have been Tucker. Hometown cooking I guess.
The Avs got real lucky in the last 10 minutes of the regulation. They looked terrible. They had trouble getting the puck out of their own zone without turning it over at the blue line. And never did sustain any pressure in the offensive zone until they got the late power play. People want to cheer Clark for his goalie imitation late in the game, but if he hadn’t coughed up the puck he wouldn’t have had to play goalie…at least he didn’t give up on the play and redeemed himself.
Budaj is in the zone right now and many of the bounces (lucky or otherwise) are going his way. He has stolen 4pts for the team on this trip so far. Keep it up Boods.
What amazes me is the animal that Hejduk has become defensively. I’ve never seen him killing it this hard on his own side of the ice. He’s been better than good this year. I’m still kind of waiting for Stastny to take over. He’s always good but I’m waiting for him to go go Forsberg/Drury on us and just take over during a crucial part of the game.
Um, Jones, Arny and Hensick were um, bad.
Is it almost time for a Rycroft start or does Granato ride Budaj all the way through this road trip?
no, you ride the Budaj train until it falls off the tracks.
actually, after the Calgary H&H, the Avs play 5 games in 7 days against some rather poor teams. I’m guess we see Razor on the 22nd against LA and the 28th against Phoenix.
and speaking of Hejduk. Beyond the defense part, I’ve noticed him initiating contact a lot, starting with Boll in the Columbus game. When he and another player are going for the puck, he’s been putting a hit on the other guy. Honestly, I’m surprised he hasn’t gotten an interference call yet…
DD, take a look at this and give me your informed opinion, please.
http://stats.hockeyanalysis.com/200809/teamgiveaways.php
nice recap DD, the redemptions point wasn’t something i noticed.
thanks Doc. I also completely missed the theme that the Avs played poorly but scored in the final seconds to ruin Edmonton’s night, much like Edmonton did to us in game 2. Oh well.
I think giveaway and takeaway stats are completely junk.
Last December, Cody McLeod scored his first NHL goal when Brian Rafalski made a terrible pass right to Cody Mac’s stick. It was as blatant a giveaway as you’ll ever see, but Rafalski had zero in the game. That’s the exact point where I stopped paying attention to those stats.
Fair enough. I always forget that it’s one of those highly subjective, home-team gets a break, NHL stats.
..and hits. That’s another subjective stat that gets abused by whoever keeps track of those things. They keep friggen shot charts but can’t get some pretty basic stats right. Granted, the one guy the NHL barely pays to do this probably is overtaxed with six other jobs.
No calgary recap?
DD, with the exception of words that should be reserved for Budaj, is employing the “if you can’t say something nice about someone …. ” maxim.
Bob is more or less correct. Time just kind of got away from me this morning.