The Avalanche marched into Joe Louise Arena tonight on the second night of back-to-back games and walked away with a 5-4 shootout win. Don't try and say that didn't sting, Wings fans.
In a back-and-forth game, the Avalanche got timely goals from Ryan O'Reilly and Daniel Winnick, book-ended by David Jones tallies to get this game into a shootout. From there, Peter Budaj locked it down and Brandon Yip drove in the winning goal to spoil the Red Wings season opener.
Long Thoughts
During last night's "recap" I said that if the Avalanche turned the puck over against the Wings the way they did against the Flyers, they'd be walking away with their asses in a bag. You know, after it was handed to them. Turns out they only needed to marginally improve their turnover rate (because the Flyers are clearly a superior team to the Red Wings) to still get the W.
The Avalance are still making small, silly plays that are really hampering the flow of their game. They are still having trouble chipping the puck out of the zone, a lot of passes seem to be getting intercepted and there's just a lot of running around. One thing that really struck me tonight was how little the Wings appeared to be moving while defending. They were just in the right position. On the other hand, the Avalanche were often racing across the ice to get in a lane or cover their man. The coaching staff needs to get them to settle down and do a better job at reading where the puck will go.
It looks like I spoke too soon in believing Joe Sacco wouldn't stray far from his "ride the Andy" strategy in goal. If this was last season, Anderson would have been in net for both back-to-back games. Instead, he put Peter Budaj in who more than held his own against the Red Wings attack. It's a good sign to get Budaj in early and show the team that it's not all about the Anderson this year.
Short Thoughts
J.M. Liles is just 35 points away from 40 on the season.
David Jones is now just 28 goals away from 30 on the season.
Did anybody else pee their pants - just a bit - every time Datsyuk and Zetterberg were on the ice?
Why were both two-goal scorers in this game on the bench during the first round of the shootout?
Why did David Jones not take a new stick before his shootout attempt?
Two games in a row with a short-handed goal against is something that needs to be addressed right away.
How about Daniel Winnik with not only a crucial goal, but a hard-working *and* skilled goal? Just for that goal alone, I'm counting his signing as the best of the offseason. For any team.
Philippe Dupuis won 100% (4-for-4) of his faceoffs tonight.
Ryan O'Reilly blasted off 7 shots tonight. Three missed, three were on net and one was in the net.
Speaking of shots, brace yourself: the Avalanche outshot their opponent 38 to 28 tonight.
Suck it, Wings fans.
Tuesday, October 12, 2010
Avalanche 5 - Red Wings 4 - Suck It Edition
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3 Comments:
Completely agree. Lots of running around and frantic recovery skating.
Our PP needs something to improve it, because they are just not going to get it done with what we have. Either we need to go get somebody that can provide that big, fearful slapshot from the blue line, or we need to call up one of those 800,000 defensemen we have in Lake Erie. One of them is bound to have a big shot.
Love the Budaj played here as well! I hope he gets 7-10 more starts than he did last year to help keep Andy fresh in the second half of the season.
Avalangelist had a good post on the lack of point presence on the PP: http://www.hockeybuzz.com/blog.php?post_id=30724&blogger_id=122
It's clear that it's been a problem but the video breakdowns are a great touch and really drive the point home.
Time to bring in Souray? ;)
People say Souray's contract is the issue, though no contract is really an issue for the Avs right now since we have an insane amount of cap space. Plus, Souray cleared waivers, and I'm sure that that has to affect his salary somehow if we were to pick him up. Souray would be a great add, IMO. But that doesn't follow the whole "build from within" philosophy. But goodness do we need somebody back there.
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