While the Colorado Avalanche greatly improved over a dismal season last year, shattering expectations left and right and arguably putting up more of a fight than the Detroit Red Wings against the San Jose Sharks in the Stanley Cup Playoffs, the Avalanche were bogged down throughout the regular and post-season by their defensive situation.
The Avalanche went up against the LA Kings tonight at the Pepsi Center for the third time this season. John Michael Liles would be a healthy scratch again and Ruslan Salei would still be in the lineup. Even though Salei’s penalty allowed the Kings to convert in OT to win Monday night, coach Joe Sacco has liked the veteran’s play as of lately. If you ask me, he should have been benched for losing his cool in such a need-to-win situation. The Avs were also playing sans Darcy Tucker for his hit on Greene Monday night.
After last night’s loss to the Anaheim Ducks, the Avalanche needed to come out of this game with something. Anything better than what they played last night. Coach Joe Sacco sat them down this morning in LA and told them to forget the game against the Ducks. Just do better tonight against the Kings. Played better they did, but it still wasn’t quite enough.
The Avalanche pulled a win last night against the Coyotes out of their collective rear ends. It seems that Lady Luck didn’t bless the Boys tonight in Los Angeles against the Kings. With Adam Foote and Kyle Cumiskey out of commission, John Michael Liles and Ruslan Salei were in the lineup. I thought Salei did a pretty good job, but I found myself face-palming over Liles.
It has been a little while since I’ve fawned over stellar Colorado Avalanche crease crusader Craig Anderson and since he’s been named the NHL’s 2nd Star of the Week for his insanely awesome play, I figured now would be the right time to do so.
How goes it, Avalanche fans? First of all, about the game tonight, we saw a few things in the first period that we didn’t see in the last game against the Vancouver Canucks. We saw defense. The Boys spent a lot of time in front of the net, helping Anderson with his job. We also saw offense, more offense than we saw in the entire game last Saturday.
Are you as excited for this upcoming season as you were last year?
Total Voters: 6
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