Down, But Not Out

Things were looking pretty grim for the Avs in the early going of the third period of tonight's game versus the San Jose Sharks. The Avs allowed a goal less than one minute in for the second straight game. They were in a 1-3 hole with only about a dozen shots on goal. The defensive pairing of Adam Foote and Ryan Wilson had been on the ice and had turnovers that lead to all three Sharks goals. Budaj was not having his best game, not awful, but wasn't fully on top of things. There was not really a whole lot of positives to go on at that point. In fact, the only good thing was that rookie defenseman Kevin Shattenkirk had scored his first career goal in the first period to tie the game at 1.

The third period is when things finally started looking up for the Avs. The Sharks were poised to go up 4-1, but had their goal called off when it was put in the net with a high stick (although just barely above the crossbar). That seemed to be the momentum-changer of the game for the Avs. Chris Stewart netted a goal, the 50th of his NHL career and suddenly the Avs were back in the game, down by only one goal. Paul Stastny then scored his 8th goal of the season off a nice pass from Stewart and the game was tied with just over 5 minutes left in regulation.

Just because the game was tied did not mean the Avs just got to coast into overtime. Peter Budaj had to make some great saves late in the third period as the Sharks made their last flurry of attempts to get back on top of the scoreboard. Budaj kept the puck out of the net and the teams headed to overtime to battle it out. A little over two minutes into the extra period saw Kevin Porter streaking in on Antero Niittymaki. Porter shot the puck and it found the back of the net. Miraculously the Avs had come back from their 3-1 deficit in the third period to somehow beat the Sharks 4-3 in overtime.

This was one of those games where the Avs were down and not playing very well. Their defensive pairing of Foote and Wilson was awful, yet continued to be played together while the forward lines were shuffled around. The Avs had a dismal 3 shots on goal in the second period and only had a total of 22 in the game to the 43 of the Sharks. Budaj finished the game with 40 saves and really was key in allowing the Avs to comeback in this one. Not to be lost in everything else was that John-Michael Liles had 2 assists, bringing his points total for the season to 18, tops in the NHL among defenseman for now (Kris Letang of the Penguins and Nicklas Lidstrom of the Red Wings both have 17). Somehow, something changed for the Avs in the third period and they pulled off a win in a game that for the most part, they did not deserve to win. Hopefully, this will not become a trend for the boys in burgundy, but being down does not always mean you should count them out.