Heartbreaker

Well, what can you say? The Avs have been defeated 4-2 in the series against the San Jose Sharks. As a fan, it is a bitter disappointment right now. But there is a lot of positive to go on as well. Look back to October 1st, game one on the season. Did anyone honestly give the Avs a shot at being in the playoffs? Nope. When the Avs actually made the playoffs, everyone pretty much blew them off and figured it would be an easy first round for San Jose.

The Avs definitely gave the Sharks a run for their money. They stormed into San Jose and took game one on the road, surprising pretty much everyone. The series was very physical and for the most part, very close in scoring. The Sharks outshot the Avs drastically, and yet thanks to the play of Craig Anderson the Avs managed to stay in the series. This was a very close battle as 3 of 6 games went to overtime and 2 others were close to it (game 1 was a last minute victory and until they pulled Anderson tonight, it could've easily been tied up again).

Right now, it's nothing but a heartbreaker for Avs fans, but still we have a lot of positives to go on. I think that next year this team is going to be a force to be reckoned with. The Avs' young stars played magnificently this year and they'll only get better with age and experience. The team surprised a lot of people including all the experts that predicted another season much like last year. Honestly, I didn't know what to expect for the Avs this season, so I was pleasantly surprised when things came together the way they did.

We do have one more thing to look forward to as Avs fans. June 23rd is when the NHL Awards take place in Vegas. The Avs' star rookie Matt Duchene, 3rd overall draft pick in 2009 is one of three players nominated for the Calder Trophy. Duchene lead all rookies with 55 points (24 goals, 31 assists) in the regular season. There's no guarantees that Matt will win it, but it's something to look forward to anyway.

And now, it's time to finish up. I just want to say, thank you from the bottom of my heart to the Avalanche. There have been a lot of memorable moments and I have a lot of new favorite players (Yes, I'm one of those people who can't pick just one favorite). This season was really a lot of fun and more than I would've thought it would be after last year. I am so proud of everything the Avs have accomplished this season and I am going to start counting down the days until next season rolls around. It's only a little over 5 months until the next NHL season starts!

Frustrating

There are no words for how frustrating the Avs are right now. Game after game after game they have been completely outshot by the Sharks. The shots in the first period of the game were 12-2 in favor of the Sharks. Seriously, Avs? Two shots in a period will never win you hockey games. They were then outshot 17-9 in the second period (and outscored 3-0 in the period). Finally, the Avs outshot the Sharks 17-8 in the third period, but the game was well out of hand by that time. They lost this one in a huge 5-0 letdown.

Throughout this series the Avs have relied heavily on the play of Craig Anderson. He has been fantastic and totally stole game 3 for the Avs, but he is human. A goaltender can definitely save your butt from time to time, but your game plan cannot be 'let's just let our goaltender do all the work for us.'

It's hard to believe that game after game, so much of the play has been in the Avalanche's zone. Defensively the Avalanche clearly need some work. It's puzzling that in a series with so many shots going toward Anderson that Brett Clark has been a healthy scratch throughout. Clark is the Avs' top shot blocker and one of the leading shot blockers in the league, but he has yet to suit up in the playoffs.

The Avs got their butts kicked in this game, with a little assistance from the referees. The officials continue to call every little thing on the Avs and not much on the Sharks. The Avs however failed to put much on net and spent way too much time in their own defensive zone. The Sharks controlled the play for almost the entire game.

The one-sided refereeing is bound to continue in this series. The Avs will just have to continue to overcome that as much as possible and keep up their penalty killing. This sets up for a game 6 on Saturday that will be do or die for the Avs. They still have several players out with injuries (most notably Milan Hejduk, Peter Mueller and David Jones).

Either the Avs will find a way to spend some time in the San Jose zone next game or they are liable to exit the playoffs early. Or just maybe super-human Craig Anderson will show up again. It will be interesting to see how the Avalanche come out for game six.

Here We Go Again...

For the third straight game, the series between Colorado and San Jose headed to overtime to decide the game. Their last meeting in the regular season also went to overtime and the first game of this series narrowly avoided overtime. It's clear these two teams are pretty evenly matched.

San Jose came out strong in the first period, clearly hungry after losing game 3 because Dan Boyle put a puck behind his own goaltender. Ryan O'Reilly was actually shown to have tipped the puck past Evgeni Nabokov, but Boyle was the one who shot the puck, trying to flip it behind the net.

Dan Boyle redeemed himself early in game 4 as the Sharks got a power play 35 seconds into the game. He scored just over one minute into the game, probably making himself feel a lot better for that OT goal in game 3. The Sharks continued their play from the second and third period of the previous game by completely dominating the play for the first period.

The Avs came out strong for the second period and things were much more even for the rest of the game. Rob Blake took a penalty and allowed the Avs to even things up. Just a few seconds into his penalty, John-Michael Liles fired a shot from the blue line that Paul Stastny tipped into the net behind Nabokov.

For the remainder of regulation, both goaltenders remained strong. Both Nabokov and Craig Anderson made some big saves to keep the game tied at 1. Late in the game, it became apparent that barring any last minute goals, the teams were headed to overtime again. The teams were closer in shots this time around, although once again San Jose out-shot the Avs 34-28 in regulation.

As the other games in this series have been, this game was very physical. Both teams were throwing hits left and right. The referees were definitely less of a factor tonight. Both teams were called for four minors apiece and traded power play goals.

Early in overtime, both goaltenders had to make some huge saves to keep the game going. The action went from end to end and the overtime lasted about ten minutes before San Jose's Joe Pavelski finally got a puck past Craig Anderson.

The series now heads to San Jose for game number 5 with each team having won one home game and lost one home game. Both teams will be desperate to get a win in San Jose to bring the series lead back to Colorado on Saturday with the potential to eliminate the other team. Hopefully the Avalanche will get a couple of guys healthy for game 5.

NOTES:
The Avs were missing Milan Hejduk tonight who was injured in the last game. Kevin Porter and Ryan Stoa were also both out with injuries, joining David Jones and Peter Mueller. Ryan Wilson was a healthy scratch tonight in favor of Ruslan Salei. Brett Clark was also a healthy scratch. Marek Svatos and Chris Durno stepped into the lineup to fill the voids left by Hejduk and Stoa.

New Blog!

I've had blogs in various forms in the past and decided it was time to start up again. This first post will be a kind of 'about me'. I am a huge fan of the Colorado Avalanche hockey team. I have been a fan since the team moved to Denver back in 1995. One day I was channel surfing and came across an early Avs game and never made it any further. I was instantly hooked and went along for the ride as they won the ultimate prize, the Stanley Cup in their first year in Denver.

Initially, I was too young and my parents were not terribly interested in hockey, so I just watched the games on TV. It was quite rare for me to miss a game, although back in those days not every single game was televised, a handful were only available on the radio. It didn't matter to me, as long as I was able to follow along with every game. When I was old enough to get a job and save up some money, I bought myself tickets to my first ever game. The Avs played the Calgary Flames that night and the game ended in a 2-2. It might have been disappointing to have the first game I ever went to end in a tie, but I was too thrilled at getting my favorite NHL team live to care.

Now over the years I have attended numerous games, some wins, some losses and some important moments in team history. When they clinched their historic 9th straight division title, I was at the game. When Patrick Roy played his last regular season game (though we didn't know it at the time) I was there. I also was at Joe Sakic's 1000th NHL game, my little sister's first hockey game experience. Earlier this year, I was there as Joe Sakic's number 19 was raised to the rafters.

The team has had their ups and downs over the years, but my love for them has never wavered. Oh sure, I have been frustrated with the team at times and last season was quite disappointing, but it ended up getting us some great draft picks and surprising success this year. It has been a fun ride these past 15 years as an Avs fan and this year's playoffs are definitely the most exciting in quite a while.

I won't give any guarantees as to how regularly I will be able to post, but I hope to have fun with two of my favorite passions: hockey and writing.