What A Game!

After losing 4 straight games (three of them in overtime) the Avs bounced back with a vengeance the last two nights. Last night they defeated the Atlanta Thrashers who have been hot lately, a 4-2 game. Tonight they played the Capitals in Washington and were facing a team that has struggled of late, which can always be a dangerous situation. It was clear in the early going that this would be a really fun game to watch. Despite having played last night the Avs came out flying.

The scoring started early for the Avs as rookie Kevin Shattenkirk put the Avs up 1-0 a little over 2 minutes into the game. The Capitals tied the game up nearly halfway through the first period, but that was the last time the game would be tied. Unfortunately, on this play Kyle Quincey fell down into the boards and injured his shoulder and did not return to the game. Ryan Wilson scored a goal late in the first period to put the Avs on top 2-1. Wilson had easily his best game of the season after having been scratched for the last 4 games. He was throwing hits and looking a lot like the Ryan Wilson we saw last season.

In the second period Washington's Alexander Semin got tossed out of the game for a cross-check to the head of John-Michael Liles. The Avs received a 5 minute power play as a result and Paul Stastny netted his team leading 12th goal of the season. Shattenkirk made a nice pass to Stastny on the goal and had his second point of the night. Stastny, having assisted both Avs goals in the first period got his third point of the game.

The only scoring in the third period came from former Avalanche player Matt Hendricks, further extending the curse of former Avs players scoring against them. The Caps came on strong late in the third period, out-shooting the Avs 17-5 in the final 20 minute frame. The play in the last 5 minutes of the game was very intense and if you weren't watching, you really missed out. The Avs won their second game in two nights and they had to fight hard to keep their 3-2 lead late in the game. All in all, this was a very entertaining and intense game to watch, probably the best game from the Avs all season long (with no Hejduk, Galiardi or Stewart in the lineup!).

To Fight or Not To Fight

It's easy to criticize a decision after the fact, when you know something did not turn out well. Chris Stewart broke his hand last week in a fight with Kyle Brodziak of the Minnesota Wild, an injury that will have the Avs' young power forward out for 4-6 weeks. Had Stewart not broken his hand in the fight, fans would probably have been praising Stewart for his pretty one-sided beating of the Wild player. However, Stewart did break his hand which puts his team in a pretty tough spot.

The question a lot of folks have been asking is this: should a star player ever drop the gloves? Ideally, the answer would be no. It's an easy way for a play to get injured and miss some games. When Matt Duchene dropped his gloves for his first ever NHL fight, a lot of fans were excited, but some were probably cringing, hoping that he didn't hurt one of his hands in the altercation. Duchene was not injured, so nothing bad really came of the fight. Then Chris Stewart dropped the gloves, as he has done multiple times in the past and broke his hand in the process. So it would seem that you don't want your more skilled players fighting.

It's one thing when a player like David Koci is injured in a fight. His main role on the team is to play a few minutes in a game and stick up for his teammates if needed (his effectiveness in fights is another story altogether). If Koci gets hurt during a fight, he's not leaving a huge hole in the roster that will be tough to fill. Call up any guy from Lake Erie to take on some of the minutes and you're okay.

When a player on the top line such as Chris Stewart drops the gloves and injures himself, the team is in a position where they might trouble filling in for him. At the time of his injury, Stewart was the team's leading goal scorer with 11 goals (now tied by David Jones and both Milan Hejduk and Paul Stastny have 10 goals). In the few games since Stewart's injury the Avs have not won a single game. They've lost three games in overtime and one in regulation. The losses cannot entirely be blamed on Stewart not being in the lineup, but it certainly isn't helping the Avs.

Fighting in the NHL is always being debated and certainly when a star player gets hurt in a fight, it brings on more questions. Sometimes a player needs to drop the gloves to stick up for his teammates who don't want to fight. A fight can totally change the momentum of a game, so outlawing it altogether would be bad for the game. Certain players should probably not fight or at least not do it on a regular basis. Perhaps Chris Stewart really felt that he needed to stick up for a teammate because the Avs were already ahead in the game. He probably regrets the decision now that he will be missing so much hockey. It was a single moment in a game and it ended up badly, but it doesn't mean that Chris Stewart should never fight again. Maybe in the future he will think twice before dropping the gloves.

Thanks-giving!

It's nearly Thanksgiving here in the United States, so I have spent some time thinking about things for which I am thankful. One of the things on my list of things to be thankful for is hockey. It's amazing once I sit down and realize how many cool and nice people I've met through being a hockey fan. There are so many diverse and wonderful people that I have gotten to know through our shared fandom of hockey and especially the Colorado Avalanche. When I think about it, I would probably not have ever met a lot of these wonderful people if we didn't share a love of the same hockey team.

I started out as an Avs fan all on my own. My dad was not ever a big hockey fan (he was a Broncos fan) and my mom really doesn't like sports at all. I didn't grow up watching hockey, although I did have a cousin (who shares a name - different spelling- with a current Avs player oddly haha) who played hockey for a while, so I was exposed to it at a very young age. Since neither of my parents were really interested in hockey, I didn't get to attend any Avalanche games until 2002 when I was old enough to have a job and save up some of my money for tickets. Once I was able to attend games, I got to meet other Avs fans and even some nice fans from other teams (although I've met not-so-nice fans too). Over the years I've gotten to see some fantastic milestone games and some less than spectacular performances, but I've always had a great time with the fans around me chatting about our love of hockey.

It's not just the fans either, all the players, coaches and other people surrounding the team that I have had the opportunity to meet have all been great, normal, friendly people. It's never been an experience like meeting your favorite actor or athlete only to find out they're a total jerk. Not only with hockey do you get to enjoy a fantastic sport, you get to be surrounded by many awesome people. With the growing popularity of social media like Twitter and Facebook over the years, there has been an even greater way to connect to the fans who share a love of the same sport as you too. Now you can chat with Avs fans around the world (I even met a fan from Brazil this year!) and fans of other teams who just share your same passion for the sport. What's there not to love about hockey?

So as Thanksgiving rolls nearer for us in the US, there has been lots of time to think about the things we are grateful for. Sometimes, it's good to take a step back and realize what a wonderful thing you have in front of you. Hockey is a great way to meet with other people who you probably would not have ever had any connection to otherwise. It's amazing to start chatting about hockey and your favorite team with someone you've never previously met and before you know it, you have a new friend. Oh, and let's not forget that hockey is an entertaining sport to watch too.

Avs-Rangers 11/19/10 in Pictures

The Avalanche defeated the Rangers 5-1 in Craig Anderson's return to the Avalanche after hurting his knee during warm-ups when he was set to back up Peter Budaj in Vancouver.

Stop Criticizing Avs Fans

An article by Mark Kiszla that ran in today's Denver Post seems to have sparked a lot of irritation among loyal Avs fans. As an Avs fan, quite frankly I am sick of all the criticism from the local newspaper media (the only media source that regularly covers the Avs in depth). I've read plenty of articles recently citing low attendance at Avalanche games and using that as an excuse to say how bad we are as fans. It's a ridiculous argument to start in the first place. These professional writers are being paid to attend the games and they get in for free, so they're not exactly contributing to ticket sales themselves. In fact, one reporter has stated that he wouldn't pay the prices that we do to get into games.

I think the lack of attendance is not a sign that there is a lack of passion for the Avalanche. Certainly, there is no lack of desire to attend games on my part. If the money was there, I would buy season tickets and be there every night to the end, win or lose. It would be awesome for me to be able to support our boys in burgundy in person all the time, but financially, I just can't do it. There are ticket deals out there if you get on the right mailing list or read the right blogs, so you can find cheaper than usual tickets, but it's still not inexpensive to go to a game. Frequently I see offers for upper bowl seats for only $20 apiece. That's pretty affordable, but if you take a friend with you, there's $40 already and if you then pay $10 for parking, you're in for $50. I don't ever eat or drink at the games because the food prices are ridiculous. $50 for two people to attend a hockey game doesn't sound too bad, but I can't afford to do that all the time and those offers are certainly not there for every game.

Kiszla also criticized fans and went so far as to refer to them as "fans", which is just downright insulting. The criticism was that the crowd was flat and quiet early in the game. Well duh, the Avs were playing horribly and losing by a two goal margin. I'm sorry, but if the Avs are not playing well, why would I want to jump and scream and make noise? I'd feel like an idiot for mindlessly screaming just to make noise when the team is not doing anything good. The article even cites Avs' captain Adam Foote as saying the team wasn't giving the fans much to cheer about.

Fans might not be showing up every night and filling the seats, but there's no denying that the economy is not great right now. The Avs have a couple of promotions where they sell cheaper tickets that are available to all (Family Night and Guy's Night Out), but their marketing is horrible. Sure they put up some billboards around town this year (which Kiszla in his article said there were none), but the whole "It's All About the A" ad campaign is pathetic. I've heard a couple commercials where one of the players is narrating and sounded incredibly bored with the whole thing (not criticizing the players here, just saying) and that's certainly not going to make people want to go to a game.

The Avs need to start thinking about having more events to pull in the casual fans. They have charity events where fans can interact with the players, but you have to pay $250 to get in. It's understandable that the events are raising money for charity, but the fans who won't pay $50 to go to a game certainly can't go to those events. They used to have a team skills competition where you could pay $5 to watch the team do an All Star style skills competition. It was cheap and entertaining and the players probably had fun too. The first time I ever got to see the Avs in person was at one of those competitions because I was young enough to not have a job yet and my parents thought that was affordable for the whole family to go enjoy, whereas $150 for us to all sit in the nosebleeds at a game was not. Something needs to change at the organization to try and draw in more fans. Obviously doing the same thing (very little) to entertain the fans over and over is not working.

It's ridiculous that the media members would criticize the fans and call them apathetic for not buying tickets to the game, when the team is clearly just as apathetic about trying to draw fans in. I'll give them credit this year for doing the puck drop contest to give away season tickets prior to the start of the season and a few other giveaways on Facebook. Maybe they're finally getting the idea that they have to do more to get people to come to the games. If you win free tickets to a game and enjoy yourself, you're more likely to buy tickets to a future game. I don't know if the Avs will ever try to do more to have the casual fans interact with the team at some sort of event that average people can afford. Such a thing may not draw in more fans anyway, but it couldn't hurt to try. It just seems like something needs to change, something new needs to be tried to get more people in the seats. I don't see them ever dropping ticket prices to a more reasonable level, so they need to do more to make the current prices worth it (because let's face if, if you've been to more than one game, you know the in-game entertainment is going to be pretty much the same every night).

We may never know if the point of Kiszla's article was just to get a rise out of people and get more attention on the Denver Post's website. If that was the point of it, bravo, you've done it. However, if Kiszla really just feels that Avs fans are lame and cheap, then he doesn't know what he's talking about. I know every single player on the team and consider myself a pretty dedicated fan, since you probably couldn't pull a random person off the street and have them know who Kevin Shattenkirk or Jonas Holos are (and probably most of them wouldn't know who our starting goaltender is). The fact that the team is made up of so many young and unheard of players probably contributes to the lack of disinterest in the non-hockey nuts fans around town. Maybe the article wasn't aimed at people like me, but it seems that the audience that probably reads the Post is the audience that is at least somewhat fanatical about the Avs, so why criticize your readers? It seems pretty pointless to call the fans out for not buying more tickets and not cheering when the team was playing poorly. What has it accomplished besides making the more loyal fans, who can't afford to be there night in and night out, mad? Not going to every single game does not make a fan lousy, so the local newspaper media should stop insinuating that it does.

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.

More Bad News, Guys

I had a post all written out early this afternoon about how injuries could be a blessing in disguise for the young players who get called up from the AHL and have a shot at playing in the big leagues. My internet was not working by the time I finished typing up the post and now I don't feel like posting it. The Avs have lost two more players to injury after tonight's loss to the Calgary Flames, making it harder to see a bright side to all the injuries.

Players number 9 and 10 currently out with injury are David Van Der Gulik with a torn MCL and TJ Galiardi with a broken wrist. I guess if you wanted to find a bright side, it's not another concussion. Earlier today the Avs announced that Kyle Quincey is out indefinitely with a concussion, making him the 4th Avs player currently out with such an injury. This of course comes on the tail of losing Ryan Wilson to a leg injury which comes on the tail of losing Kyle Cumiskey to a concussion. The Avs players are dropping left and right and at this rate Lake Erie is going to have to suspend operations when their entire roster ends up in Denver (what happens when the farm team's farm team is all called up? Do we start suiting up the fans?).


For tonight's game the Avalanche dressed 4 rookie defensemen who had played in less than 10 games each: Holos (9 games), Liffiton (3 games), Shattenkirk (2 games) and Cohen (1 game). The addition of Cohen and Shattenkirk (both 21) and Kevin Porter (24) lowered the average age of the Avalanche to make them the youngest team in the NHL. In fact, they have only three players on the roster over the age of 30 with Hejduk, Hannan and Grahame. Given the Avs' not-so-hot start to the season defensively, this could ultimately be a good thing for them. At the very least their young D is getting some great NHL experience.

After losing two forwards to injury tonight, the Avs will be forced to call more players up from Lake Erie to fill in the voids on the roster. Both injuries are likely going to be longer-term and are currently listed as indefinite. At this point, it doesn't look like any of the injured players are very likely to return in the next game or two. Ryan Wilson's injury has not been clearly defined (big surprise) and he could be day-to-day. David Jones' hand injury is also a day-to-day thing (he practiced yesterday with the team in an orange non-contact jersey). Adam Foote is getting closer to a return as he skated for a solid 30-45 minutes prior to the rest of the team's practice yesterday.

Some of the injuries are not the sort of thing you could blame on conditioning, Galiardi's broken wrist being a prime example (he was checked into the boards and got his hand caught between his body and the glass at the wrong angle). However, with 10 players out of the lineup with various injuries, you have to start to wonder, is there something wrong with what the training staff is doing for the team? For the last several years, the Avs have had injury after injury and it has felt like the number of injuries has been beyond the level of normal hockey injuries. Hockey is a rough sport, ask anyone who has played it (I've personally had a concussion from being boarded), injuries are bound to happen. It just gets to a certain extent where you have to wonder, is it just bad luck or is there something that could or should be changed?

It's not time to panic and give up on the season for the Avs. It's still plenty early in the season and if you're going to have a lot of injuries, you'd always prefer them to happen early, rather than late. Several of the players out right now could be out fairly long-term, but it's really hard to say with those head injuries (I suffered post-concussion symptoms for years and sometimes wonder if I still do). It's getting to the point where you just kind of hold your breath every time a player gets hit kind of hard (in 2-3 days are they going to come out and say he has a concussion?!) or is a little slow to get up after blocking a shot. Hopefully the luck will turn around and players will start getting healthy, but until then, I guess we can just enjoy this sneak preview of players who will probably be making the roster in a year or two out of training camp.


*Not to be missed amongst all the bad news, Chris Stewart scored his 100th career point tonight when he netted a power play goal for the Avs in the third period. He's also one away from his 50th career goal now.*