Avs Talk - A Colorado Avalanche Blog

Double ouch. Actually triple ouch since it's the third loss to the Blues this season. Nothing left to do tonight but hope that one of Edmonton or Vancouver pulls out a regulation win so the Avs don't lose ground to both those teams. Well, that and waiting for Chuck to KO Tito. So some good may still come out of tonight.

Overall though, I really don't have much to say tonight. It was a fairly boring game to listen to and there aren't any real stories to come out of it. No new stories anyways. The penalty kill sucked, the power play sucked, the effort sucked, Manny Legace was good. Same old, same old.

I guess the real question is...what do the Avs do? Well, it's fairly simple. If they improve their special teams, they will win games. It's as simple as that. Tonight they were beat by 2 PP goals against and 0 PP goals for. That's simply unacceptable with the way special teams factor into the game now. The strange thing is, before the last 2 games, the Avs had killed 17 straight penalties (if I remember correctly). So obviously they *can* kill penalties. The question now is what's wrong? Only Q can answer and fix that. Oh, and the players.

Going 2-men down at the end of the game when you're down by 2 goals. Interesting strategy. In a shocking twist, it didn't work out so well for the Avs. It's actually the 2nd straight game where the Avs ended up taking a penalty towards the end of the game. It's definitely not the first though and certainly seems like it won't be the last.

Let's face it, the Avalanche are in a slump and they need to do something to break out of it. Should they trade someone? Bench someone? Fire the coach? Take up Scientology? All very good questions. The team has, up to this point, overperformed to what most people's expectations were. Now, they're living up to them. So is it simply a case that they're playing to the appropriate level now? I'd like to think not and I'd like to think it's as simple as adding some grit to the defense. Maybe now is a chance to shop Sauer and package him up with someone and get a solid defensive d-man in return.

As for getting rid of the coach, that's a call that none of us can make from our armchairs. Has he "lost the room"? Maybe. Is he a bad coach? No. Does he "juggle" too much? Not much more than any other coach. Q is a good coach otherwise he wouldn't be around for so long as with most long-term NHL coaches. Mike Keenan was the exception that proved the rule there. But is he a great coach? Likely not. And that may be what the Avs need in their current state.

The Good
- can I leave this blank?

The Bad
- 2 PP goals against
- 0 PP goals for

The Ugly
- going 1-3 in the season series against one of the worst teams in the league