Jets at Avalanche Recap: Jets Fly Past Avs 4-1

Crediting Hunwick with 4 “shots” is generous at best

• 5 days since our last full team practice (pre-game before the Lightning game)
• 2 days break, then a really tough travel schedule with an early morning yesterday (4 or 5 AM), flight, game, flight, and second shortened night’s sleep last night
• Tough back-to-back with a hard-skating first game
• Pretty darn long streak of really good games before this
• Playing a team with good goaltending and nasty snipers… that is actually a playoff team as of right now
• Most of the mistakes we made tonight were pretty small (Winnipeg did a good job of making them look ugly though), easily correctable, and mostly due to little mental lapses/slower footspeed that looked an awful lot like a side-effect of fatigue.
• Giggy had happy feet tonight and seemed even slower than usual – he didn’t make the same positional decisions that he usually does.
• I don’t care how not horribly he’s played as of late, but you know there’s something a little fishy when Matt Hunwick had the second highest TOI on the team and our top scoring defensemen is munching nachos.
• We worked hard tonight and had some pretty awesome chances (we actually crashed the net some and got rebounds!), but their goalie had a good game and we didn’t use our speed or skate like we usually do. Even Sacco said the Jets had the better legs tonight.

It’s a bad game. It happens. If this turns into another bad game after the boys have gotten some sleep, then I’ll be worried. Was I hoping for more from them tonight? Yes, of course. We could be sitting pretty in 8th right now, but we’re 12th instead. Still, we’re only 2 points out of the playoffs and just coming off our best stretch of hockey in the last 12 months. Yeah, some of the guys had pretty bad nights, but they’ve been good more often than not for the past month.

I’m with Giggy on this one. We just need to regroup tomorrow in practice and come out strong against the ’Yotes.

Why is Hunwick getting 22 minutes of ice time? He has been ok but you don’t play ok defensemen 22 minutes a night unless you’re embracing the tank and languishing.

If this wasn’t a trap game, I have no idea what else would have been more obvious. The Jets a bad road team, 4-8-4 on the road—I thought I read somewhere. The Avs really playing a strong game against a divisional rival the previous night. The second of a back-to-back. Our goalie being named NHL 3rd Star of the Week the previous week. It all lined up perfectly.

And then they came out and straight dominated shots. I looked and saw we had 11 to the Jets’ 1 and I knew something was amiss. When the shots didn’t start getting past Pavelic, I knew it was only a matter of time before the dam broke and sheesh did it ever. I give them the excuse of the short traveling time. I understand that. And like my dad used to always tell me, I’m not angry just disappointed. While I’d usually rag on Sacco regarding a game like this, I won’t. My only beef with him was that he never once attempted to spark the team by addressing the officials. There were a few no-calls that while borderline, would have been called had it been a blueberry sweater performing it rather than Winnepeg’s finest. I think that’s one of the little things that a coach can do when he knows his team has just traveled, is playing the second in a back to back, etc. etc. But all in all, what would you expect?

The third period was extremely silent in Pepsi Center. There was more than 7 minutes where you could hear the Avs defensemen yelling to teammates in their own end clear as day. The large crowd was taken completely out of the game, much like the team, after that soft call on O’Byrne that led to the Jets power play goal.

Van Der Gulik was tremendous. Prior the the Porter goal VDG took a nasty check, but recovered quickly and was able to stay in the play. This lead to one positive note of offense from the Avs for the night.

It doesn’t get easier. The upcoming roadie is gonna be another defining stretch of games on this season. I hope they can get some rest, battle and bounce back to keep working towards making the Playoffs. And please do NOT trade Quincey unless we’re getting Rick Nash (or someone of equal or greater value) in return.

Blame Hunwick for everything bad and assume it is his fault because basically everyone judges him from last year and continuously holds that against him!!!!! Duchene’s pass to him on the 2 on 1 gets deflected? STILL HUNWICK’S FAULT

SB Nation blogosphere says McLeod will be getting nothing worse than a wrist-slap, if anything. No hearing.

This isn’t exactly concrete proof, though.

He switched to a composite stick last season, right? Assuming that’s true… and I’m ignoring the season that didn’t happen because he missed half of it…….

Stastny has a fairly middling baseline of ten-game average points per game, somewhere around 0.7 if I had to guess, and then 1-3 times a season he just explodes and spends about a week (maybe two) hovering at or above 1.4 ppg (10 game average). That explosion never happened last season—instead, the Tank did. In a part of the season when he has historically turned his jets on, he stayed a hair below his normal and his goals plummeted. Blame that on what you want.

Point: Since he switched from his wood stick, the high streaks are gone. There’s confounds everywhere, of course, but, as a more consistent player these past two seasons, he has eliminated streaks—good streaks. The goals are right where they’ve always been…… it’s assists.

PAUL I HAVE GREAT VISION STASTNY SCORED THREE WHOLE FUCKING POINTS IN A TEN GAME SPAN THIS YEAR. ALL OF THE GOALS. PAUL I HAVE GREAT VISION STASTNY – ZERO. ZERO! ASSISTS IN A TEN GAME SPAN. NOT EVEN A LOUSY SECONDARY ASSIST ANYWHERE.

What the hell, bro. What the hell.

God, Sacco shit the bed on this one.