Well said. I thought you were a little light on the refs though.

I really hope this is the game that convinces the Avs front office that we are in desperate need of A.) More quality D, and B.) At least one more winger who loves to shoot (and I don’t think Kovy is the answer here).

Fill these needs, and we’ll be dangerous

Good recap. Pretty much sums up how I feel.

I don’t think there’s any way Mueller makes it back this series, but I have a feeling Hejduk and Jones gear up and play injured…we have no other option.

I still cannot believe that the scrum involving McGinn and Duchene resulted in a Sharks PP (and no penalty on the McGinn punches). Just unbelievable.

i too thought you were light on the refs, but the Avs didn’t play well enough to win either.

I had already logged out of the GDT for the night, but I had to come back on to mention, again, that Mark Rycroft is totally awesome. Its so nice to have actual objective feedback on the Av’s play.

Sacco is even questioning the officiating….not using it as an excuse, but questioning it.

I’m not blaming this loss on the officiating because the Avs really did not play well. But like I said in the GDT. The officiating has to be playing on the Avs mental game. When they are getting called for every little thing they do wrong, it has to make you a little tentative about the way you play. You start think too much and second guessing yourself.
On the other side when you can’t draw a call, it makes it hard on your forwards. They stop wanting to go into the corners or to the front of the net because when they do they are getting decked by the Sharks and fleeced by the officials.

The longer this series goes on the worse the Avs are getting. Why is that? Are the Sharks just that good? Are they making all the right adjustments? Or are the Avs starting to tire mentally because of the lopsided officiating?

I was so pissed about this game, I turned it off after Cody’s 5 min major. I have never done that if I have nothing else going on. I cannot even fathom how after the scrap where mcginn punched duchene, we ended up with the penalty, among many others I’m too pissed off to remember. I’m done for the night. Can’t think anymore about it.

I just want to see blood. Shark blood, and plenty of it. If you are going to get called for everything, make it count. We obviously can’t make anything else count, might as well not send them home laughing at the Avs for being creampuffs.

But who is on the market as far as quality D men go? Because I think that is what we need. One guy to put with …. well maybe two guys that can shut down a top line and NOT make mistakes that cost us goals. Our forwards are some of the best two way forwards in the league… everyone of them. And I think that is major props to Sacco. Now we need D men who do not make bone headed plays. That being said I love RR, JML, Footer, Hobbit, and BMF… they just need to be more responsible in their own zone.

Hated this game. Every pus-filled minute of it.
The Avs couldn’t get anything going. The Avs have been relying far too much on Andy and when he has an off night, the weaknesses in the defence are exposed.

Injuries for me are not an excuse, because we got Porter back, so we are actually in better shape than the last game and that was a close one.

I will look forward to next season because of so much talent, but because the Sharks will have huge momentum going into the next game, I will be really surprised if the Avs manage to win 2 straight games to take the series.

I gave up on this team after the second period. The officiating is still disgustingly one-sided in this series, but the Avalanche are doing themselves no favors.

They refuse to put in anyone with even a paper-cut for fear of reinjury, they have no offensive spark, they’re not playing physical…

Basically unless I’m AT game 6 I probably won’t watch it at all.

Ryan Wilson is still looking to pick up a man … TJ Galiardi was called for holding the stick

First off i am sick of seeing the Refs grab Cody Mc every time one of the Guppies tries to take liberties at one of our young guns. He is out there to stick up for our guys let him do his job and stop getting in the way especially when you aren’t going to do anything about it. Speakeing of which if the NHL suspends Cody for his hit in the third that he got a 5 min penalty for, such BS, I am going to flipping lose my mind.

Second I am not blaming the refs for the AVs loss tonight they looked flat but playing against 7 people at even strength is pretty hard to do. We need to suck this up and take it to them in game 6 and force a game 7!! Maybe Bettman will get off his backside and instead of telling his refs hey you can’t let an 8 beat a 1 maybe he will say hey call this game fair and lets see what happens!!!

I love how mouthy Sharks fans are…

HEY, DIPSHITS, HOW ABOUT GOING TO THE STANLEY CUP FINALS FIRST.

Basically, the Avs average 6 penalties a game, the Sharks 7. In the playoffs, the sharks are at 3.5 and the Avs still around 6 (7.6 vs 12.2 pim/g)

Agree with all that has been said. We deserved to lose and deserved to lose big. What we saw was “what happens in game 3 if our goaltender isn’t super human?” And Andy was far, far, far from super human last night as well. Looked extremely out of whack all night for some reason.

The officiating, as it has been most of the series was brutally one-sided in favor of the Sharks. How Hannan gets an extra minor instead of McGinn is an unbelievable mystery. That said, a few god-awful calls voided in this one wouldn’t have made one bit of difference.

This was just a game where the Babylanche showed up..and the real NHL’ers stayed in Denver. They were just dead from the get go. Maybe it was a hangover from the loss of game 4, maybe they pouted because they’re getting hosed by the refs, who knows, and who really cares?

The point is, that will hopefully be a wake up call that you have to step your game up in the playoffs.

But I blame the horrible game on the fact that none of the Avalanche wanted to see Tebow drafted in the first round. How can anyone from Colorado be expected to perform well after hearing that news?

Starting times have been assigned to two of the
remaining games in the 2010 NHL Stanley Cup Playoff Conference Quarter-Finals. The
starting times of games previously listed as "to be determined" are as follows:
Game #6 Series E (Sat., Apr. 24 – San Jose at Colorado) — 8:00p local/10:00p eastern.
Game #6 Series G (Sun., Apr. 25 – Vancouver at Los Angeles) — 6:00p local/9:00p eastern.

yeah im pretty much in denial about what happened. im gonna keep it that way. great recap as always!!

The sharks have taken this team lightly before, I wonder if they are going to in game 6. I Think the avs will win the next game 2-1. I’m looking forward to game 7.

With elimination on the line, you would expect Hejduk to be back and Jones to be doing everything shy of bribing Sacco to get in the lineup.

We can’t afford to have Tucker on the second line again. I don’t care how “good” people thought he played, he’s not a threat to score and he’s not good at creating scoring chances.

I applaud the effort of guys like Hendricks and Durno and Tucker, but we need to get some talent back on the ice before we spend all of game 6 in our zone as well.

After the score became a bit lopsided, Cody McLeod started to get a little chippy. After he somehow avoided an obvious cross-checking call onDouglas Murray, the charging penalty he committed on Jamie McGinn was blatant and dangerous. McLeod received a major penalty, and in my opinion, should have gotten a game misconduct. If the referees saw the cross check, I think that would have been the case. People have claimed that the officiating has been uneven. We’ll all have our biases, and I have probably overlooked a few calls that could have gone in the Av’s favor. That’ s fine, and everyone is entitled to their opionion. But McLeod was out to injure, and I’m not cool with that.

and they’re complaining about us whining about officiating and attempts to injure. A penalized hit (one that wasn’t even that bad compared to many from the Sharks) and they’re up in arms? unreal. the bias and lack of perspective is shocking.

Looking at a few of these FA’s…one or two of these guys could make a good difference next year.

Are a good example of a team getting destroyed on the road in game 5, but able to come back to win games 6 and 7.

Malkin’s playing for us on Saturday, right?

I think game 5 was simply the culmination of the Sharks finally getting some confidence and momentum, and belief in themselves. The biggest successes the Avs have had in the series were preying upon SJ’s mental weakness about fear of choking, Anderson’s phenomenal play, and Galiardicus.
After the game 4 OT winner, the Sharks started to believe in themselves. Their second line carried the offense and has taken the pressure off the top line – which is starting to allow them to play their game finally. Their mental weakness is gone.
The Avs have to put that fear of collapse back into the Sharks players, or they’re chances are not very sexy.

The officiating has been well covered in these comments, but I HATE that the refs started making calls in the third to “even it up a bit”. I’m sorry, but a 30 second PP, or that ridiculous 5 second PP we had, those aren’t powerplays. It’s just a slap in the face, insult to injury – literally. And I agree that the Avs should have stood up for themselves once the game was out of reach, because now it’s too late. You do it in game 6 and you’re back in the box and the Sharks are scoring PP goals. The Sharks have won every game they have scored a PP goal in. They have lost every game they have not scored on the PP.

But, all in all, the Avs have faired better in this series than I expected, and I’m stoked for next year.

2. Speaking of the Philadelphia Flyers, anyone looking for an illustration of how the seventh seed handled the Devils with such ease need look no further than the swollen, bloody face of forward Ian Laperriere. The gritty forward blocked a Paul Martin slap shot with his face with the Flyers leading 3-0. Reports out of New Jersey indicate he needed between 60-70 stitches, yet he told reporters after the game he expects to be ready for whomever the Flyers play in the second round. Already missing top forwards Simon Gagne and Jeff Carter, both of whom are out with foot injuries after they blocked shots, the Flyers didn’t miss a beat. And with players like Laperriere putting it all on the line, Philly cannot be taken lightly regardless of who it plays.

Fuck you, Francois Giguere.

Andy should overhear some trash talk and go batshit in a hotel lobby & vow a shutout for the rest of the series. And then deliver to within 0.5 GPG

For all the frustration this series has caused me, It sure as fuck beats not watching the Avs in the playoffs.

A little concerned the Anderson’s less than superhuman play (a rarity) may have had some cause. After he got taken out at the knee and laid fllat on his back, his concentration seemed downright poor, he started bobbling those pucks, sitting deeper in his crease, and flailing more than he has all series.

Couple that with the awkward trips (bad ice?. . . . maybe.) and I’m a little worried that he may have sustained a slight injury that was at least in his head.

Perhaps too little data, but I wondered if others saw the correlation between that specific incident and a sudden emergence of unAndiness.

Turn it green!