Coyotes Steal One from Avalanche

(AP Photo/David Zalubowski)

Boy did that ever leave a sour taste in my mouth. Phoenix stole an extra point from the Colorado Avalanche when midway through OT, Shane Doan crashed the net and either gloved the puck in, or put it in with his broken stick to give the Coyotes a 4-3 victory.

This one is going to leave a sour taste for fans and players for quite some as well. There were a multitude of factors that should have led to this goal being called back but it appeared that the Coyotes clearing off the ice right away may made all the difference.

Coaching
No matter how you cut that goal though, this game should have never made its way to overtime in the first place. After grabbing the lead midway through the third period, the Avalanche gave up a goal which could have been avoided.

In an offensive zone faceoff, the crew lined up were Tyler Arnason, Wojtek Wolski and Marek Svatos. Not exactly the strongest faceoff trio. It got even worse when Tyler Arnason got booted from the draw and Marek Svatos took his place. Now, I have no idea who decided Svatos should go as opposed to Wolski but that was also a bad move.

Svatos ended up losing the faceoff due to his skates being cemented to the ice and Radim Vrbata streaked to the net in what appeared to be a set play. Reinprecht fed him the puck and Peter Budaj stood there watching Vrbata put it into the wide open net.

Now, I'll give it to Q that Hlinka and Guite had just finished a shift so weren't a great option. However it's late in the game, you're nursing a one-goal lead and you put out your least defensively responsible line? In the immortal words of the Internet..WTF?

The Disputed Goal
A lot of people have already broken this one down already including DD and AD so I won't detail it too much. What I will say is what I said previously, for that puck to go in Doan had to either poke it in with a broken stick, with his hand or by shoving Budaj into the net. Last time I checked, those were not legal ways of scoring a goal.

The refs - and the Coyotes who ran off the field quicker than a doctor diagnoses Britney Spears as batsh*t crazy (sorry, the Patriots analogies were too easy) - disagreed. After a token review, not only was the goal counted but it was awarded to Radim Vrbata. Of course, there's no way they could call it Doan's goal as that would be admitting a mistake.

The other issue is the whistle heard shortly after the puck crosses the goal line. Now, this is of course speculative but on watching and listening to the replay, I have a hard time believing that the referee did not intend to blow his whistle before the puck crossed the goal line. And the rule isn't about when the whistle was blown, it's about when the referee intended to blow the whistle. Of course, that's tough to conclusively determine via a replay and you have to rely on the referee's word.

And which referee blew the whistle anyways? I never could tell but it didn't look like the ref behind the net did it. Which draws even more credence to this being a non-goal as there is no way the trailing ref could have seen the puck cross the line but he definitely could have been whistling the play dead.

Lines
Brunette-Hensick-Hejduk
Wolski-Arnason-Svatos
Richardson-Guite-Laperriere
McCormick-Hlinka-McLeod

Hensick started out centering the top line again but was demoted to the fourth line as Hlinka got promoted to the first line.

Brad Richardson has been making a case to stay with the big team as he's skating hard, hitting hard and playing some solid defense. Once the roster regains some health, it'll make for some tough decisions on who stays and who goes.

Next Game
The Avs have landed themselves in 2nd spot in the NW after Edmonton destroyed Calgary 5-0 last night. Who saw that one coming?

The Avalanche head off to San Jose to face the Sharks on Wednesday. It's a late game which likely means my head hitting the pillow once the final buzzer sounds so a recap won't be up until Thursday.

Notes
-Skrastins was a scratch tonight as Sauer took his spot with Brett Clark
- Wall was recalled to replace Tyler Weiman who injured his foot (good grief)
- the Avalanche again were penned in their own zone early and couldn't generate sustained pressure
- Leopold does a good job at not forcing a shot (and a subsequence block) and just dishing the puck to an open corner
- Jeff Finger was on the ice for every goal against
- T.J. Hensick with two straight two-goal games (could he be breaking out?)
- reading his lips during the reviewed third goal revealed a conclusive statement of "It's a f*cking goal"
- Richardson's slashing call in the 1st was karma for the call he "drew" earlier when his own stick caused Boyton's to ride up and clip him in the face
- is anybody happier than Lappy after scoring a goal?

Related Links
NHL.com Event Summary
In the Cheap Seats Recap
Denver Post Recap
Rocky Mountain News Recap

Avalanche Muster Up Lackluster Effort Against Coyotes

(AP Photo/Roy Dabner)

It felt like the L.A. game all over again. Well, the parts of it I was able to watch while getting ready to head out for New Years Eve.

The Avalanche got on the board first after Andrew Brunette set up Wojtek Wolski with a nice pass and Wolski beat Bryzgalov with an even better shot. The first period didn't look too bad for the Avs on a whole and I was pretty comfortable with the game at that point.

Then the second period, the Avs best period this year statistically, reared its ugly head. The Coyotes scored two goals in a span of 11 seconds to take the lead. Radim Vrbata and Steven Reinprecht were the goal scorers as they exacted vengeance on their former club.

Vrbata then added one more on a beauty feed from Peter Mueller. He took a hard pass and, rather than one-timing it, waited for a defenseman to provide a screen and wired it past Budaj for a 3-1 lead.

To their credit though the Avalanche did battle back. Brett Clark made it a 3-2 game before the second period was out as he converted on a super fake shot/slap-pass from Ian Laperriere. Then late in the third, Cody Mcleod got the equalizer off of a Vinny Lecavalier-style move from Ben Guite. Guite got the puck down low, banked it off the back of the net as he spun around the defender then, from his knees, fed a tape-to-tape (and mildly lucky) pass to Mcleod who roofed it.

However overtime settled nothing and it was off to a shootout and I wasn't feeling lucky. Budaj has been underwhelming in shootouts and tonight he got no goal support either as Wolski fanned on his shot and Svatos hit the post. Mueller and Vrbata both converted on their attempts to take the win.

Said Coach Q after the loss:
"We'll take the point," coach Joel Quenneville said. "We're coming off two disappointing losses at home [to Detroit, Los Angeles] and down 3-1 in this one, getting the one point isn't too bad."

Good to know the team has lowered their standards so they can be less disappointed with losing to cellar dwelling teams.

As Dario, Jib and I were discussing in the comments of the Kings recao, it should now be interested (read: aggravating) to see who's in net against the Coyotes on Wednesday. Budaj had a mediocre outing tonight and SOP is to swap goalies out as punishment...err...incentive.

However at some point Q is going to have to end the goalie carousel as it proved fruitless last year. Even if Budaj is not as consistent as we'd like, I'd still prefer a 4 wins in a row followed by a loss rather than a win-loss-win-loss rotation.

And a round of thanks to the grinders on this team for being the players who continue to show up and play with passion and drive night after night. Ben, Cody, Ian and Cody, we salute you.

Related Links
NHL.com Event Summary
TSN Recap
ColoradoAvalanche.com Recap