Avs Drop Coyotes 4-1

November 5th, 2009 Comments

Peter Budaj led the Colorado Avalanche past the surprisingly hot Phoenix Coyotes, 4-1 last night at the Pepsi Center. Facing 29 shots and stopping 28, Boods managed an excellent effort against a team that is blowing as many minds with their season start as the Avs are.

Photo by jwg

Despite seemingly lackluster play from a majority of the Avalanche team, the Burgundy Boys managed to squeak out a nice win, ending a two game losing streak. Milan Hejduk set the tone of the game with an early tip just fifty-seven seconds into the game on a hard rip from the point by Kyle Quincy.

The first line managed a nice power play opportunity and hammered the puck home just as the game was getting warmed up. From then on it was a battle of the teams, which at times looked more like a battle of the sloppy passes and lazy plays. The rest of the first and all of the second period went scoreless as both teams failed to really drive an offensive push and ended up, more often than not, hardly getting any decent shots.

The game was a hard hitting lesson for the young guns, with Matt Duchene and even Cody McLeod getting crushed at different points throughout. Duchene was elbowed in the face by Martin Hanzal and then taken out from behind by Adrian Aucoin in the third period. Duchene was held out of practice today as a result of a sore shoulder which may be somehow related to the above mentions.

The game was blown wide open in the third with Marek Svatos pounding in the rebound of shot from high and outside by Paul Stastny. Svatos swooped in and caught Bryzgalov moving his arm to clear out the rebound. Both he and Lepisto thought Svatos had missed but he got a quick flick under the puck and roofed it. I swear Svatos has the reaction time of a hummingbird, watch for it next game and you’ll see.

The 2-0 lead was short lived though, as the Coyotes resident grandpa, Ed Jovanovski had his rip from the point tipped in by our very own defensive stud (usually) Kyle Quincy. This was unfortunate and Quincy was pissed when it happened but such is life.

Factor in a typical Avs defensive let up in the third period and Phoenix had some decent scoring chances. The Coyotes pulled Bryzgalov with over two minutes left in the game and it created a decent scramble but great pressure by Ryan O’Reilly and David Jones led to Jones tossing in an empty netter from three feet away, blowing past a horrible game-saving attempt by Michalek.

Photo by jwg

All nine fans at the game erupted into celebration and congratulated each other on the win but the game wasn’t quite over. Milan Hejduk decided to end the game on the same note he started it with, catching a lovely feed from Stastny to create a breakaway chance. Needless to say he destroyed Bryzgalov with a beautiful shot with only twenty-four seconds left.

Phoenix entered the game fifth in the Western Conference with a stupendous 9-5 record and could have tipped the scales with more finesse. It was a tough loss for the team, who have been the goat of the NHL due to many years of lackluster showings as well as filing for bankruptcy this year.

What you missed:

The Avs set the franchise low record for attendance. Read perspectives here and here. This is pathetic and frankly would be inexcusable had I not been on the receiving end of a Kroenke Sports F-U to season ticket holders last year.
Paul Stastny looked terrible but somehow managed to come out with three points. He did play decent defense.
Hensick… slow and ineffective.
Chris Stewart, despite putting points up early on his return from Erie, has done nothing and played very little in periods 2 and 3. Less in the third as his first shift in he took a needless penalty.
Speaking of penalties, the Avs only took four!
Radar O’Reilly was looking great on the PK. I still miss Galiardi but he’ll do.
We’re still missing Darcy Tucker but it was nice to have McLeod back out there, mixing it up.

Speaking of Darcy Tucker, Darren Dreger says that Tucker is scheduled for one last test and, if he passes, could be back to the Avs next week. I’m sure it will be slow going until he is comfortable out there again but I’m ready to see someone doing nothing for us get sent back down.

What did you think about the game? How do you feel about Tucker’s early return? What is your favorite line combination this year?