When the puck dropped in the first period, we didn’t see the same sluggish team the Avalanche were in the last two games. The pace had been picked up once again; it’s likely that Coach Joe Sacco lit a fire underneath the team’s collective behinds. You can tell the team is missing both Cody McLeod and Darcy Tucker, both out on injury. The places they take in front of the net when it comes to defense still seem to be empty, but the Avs are doing a better job of getting the puck out of the slot.
The Vancouver Canucks did score once, however, at 11:05 of the first period by a wrist shot from Mason Raymond. He got the shot on a rebound, just before Anderson could get his stick in the way. Luckily for the Avalanche, Anderson doesn’t let many goals like that through.
Shortly after that, Kevin Bieksa cross-checked Scott Hannan in front of the Colorado net. John Michael Liles wouldn’t have any of it and immediately began roughing Bieksa and vice versa. For the incident, Liles and Bieksa both got 2 minutes for roughing and Bieksa also got another 2 minutes for cross-checking. That penalty was served by Tanner Glass. With about 35 seconds left in those penalties, the refs called Shane O’Brien for high-sticking.
The Avalanche had a few good chances on net during the power play, but the Canucks had a really good penalty kill. The first period ended with the score of 0-1 in favor of the Canucks.
When the second period began, we saw more of the same. There was a lot of work in the neutral zone by both the Avalanche and the Canucks. Unfortunately for the Avalanche, the Canucks started pressing the net a lot harder than the period before. The Canucks scored once again, this time by Ryan Kesler. The Canucks danced around our defense, got a shot on goal, and scored again on the rebound.
Courtesy of http://avalanche.nhl.com
Anderson doesn’t let many rebounds go, but the Canucks have taken advantage of the two Anderson let through so far. As I said before, this period spent a lot of time in the neutral zone. Adam Foote got the only penalty in this period, for high-sticking one of the Canucks in the eye. The Avs had no trouble killing that penalty.
The best offensive shift the Avs had was about 3 minutes to the end of the period. Kyle Cumisky (I believe) passed the biscuit between a Canucks legs and Paul Stastny picked it up, took it to the right side of the net and tried to send it up for a shot. Andrew Raycroft was there, and had his arm down, to block the pass. The period ended, still no goal from the Avalanche. The one thing I can say about their play? They’re trying, they really are. They’re just playing like a team that’s played 11 of their first 15 games on the road.
Try as they might, the Avs kept having a hard time getting the puck into the Canucks’ zone. It seemed that every time the Avs tried to press offensively, they couldn’t get past the pressure of the Canucks defense. When a two-on-one developed in the Avalanche zone, Rypien passed the puck off to Tanner Glass who let off a nice wrist shot. The shot was blocked by Anderson, but the rebound bounced off of Scott Hannan’s skate and went in. That brought the score to 3-0.
Chris Stewart had a nice shot on goal, which was blocked by Raycroft. It was after the shot where a Canuck pushed him as another crossed in front of them, sending Stewart to the ice and crashing into the boards. No call was made, of course, because the refs like to turn a blind eye to a lot of things this season throughout the NHL.
The Avalanche were certainly playing tired. There were few times in this game where an Avs player wasn’t being covered by a Canuck. The best part of the Avs game was their penalty kill, sadly enough. The four minute double minor issued to Milan Hejduk was killed easily by the Avs.
With less than five minutes left in the game, Joe Sacco made the move to bench Stastny and Wolski, two of their top line players. This is one thing that Sacco is not afraid to do. If a player isn’t doing well and not contributing, he’ll bench them. Unfortunately, he made this move a bit late. There were a lot of players not contributing much in this game. It wasn’t until the end of the second period that I realized Chris Stewart was out on the ice.
Marek Svatos was sloppy. When the puck touched Wolski’s stick it was hard telling where it was going. Stastny just wasn’t doing much before or after his once shot attempt in the third. Don’t get me wrong, there were players contributing on the Avs end and it was the rookies. Matt Duchene, Ryan O’Reilly, Kyle Cumisky, Chris Durno, and Phillipe Dupis were all out on the ice, hustling and going for the puck.
Christ Stewart finally had enough and roughed up a Canuck, which was called as a roughing penalty, of course. Seems a bit unfair to me seeing how many times the Canucks got away with roughing on Stewart in this game. The game ended with the Avs being blanked by the Canucks 3-0.
We’ll call the last two games between the Canucks and Avalanche the “Eye for an Eye” series. In their first meeting, the Avs won 3-0. The second, the Canucks did the same to the Avs. The next game for the Avalanche is Wednesday night against the Phoenix Coyotes, who have been doing very well this season. Hopefully after having a few days off the Avalanche will be well rested and they can get back to being a difficult team to play.
Related posts:
- Avalanche Blank Panthers 3-0
- Kings Blank Avs 3-0
- Avalanche Ground Flyers 5-4
- Avalanche Still #1 in the Northwest Division
- Avalanche Rally, Blow Past Flames in SO
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