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.