No Reimer Reasoning; Avs Comeback Falls Short, 4-3

Poor Olver :(

Hey DDC, how much time do you spend dreaming up these article titles, cackling manaically over steepled fingers?

Statment: Great job tonight by the guys tonight. No win, but lots of positives. Radar, EJ, Winnik and Dutch deserve gold stars. Budaj, Elliott, Elliott’s skate, O’Byrne, and Yip, not so much. Hedgie and Stazz were ok but didn’t make anything happen except for a few exciting shifts of great passing. Liles was nearly invisible too – remember when he used to score? McC got his first point with the Avs. The curse of Duchene’s Left Wing strikes again. Please, hockey gods, let Olver and Wilson be ok, for their sake, the team’s sake, and our sake. We need them playing. And the tank rolls on – we are back in Swedish position (#2 where we can draft one of the Swedes) again. The Languishing continues.

Question: Is Cameron Awesome our replacement for Foote on the blueline next year? They seem like they play fairly similarly (hard, gritty, sticking up for teammates, etc), and I’m impressed with what I’ve seen of the kid so far. Is Gaunce Adam Foote 2.0, or am I just suffering from wishful thinking?

Sounds like I missed a decent game….but once again we had a pretty good meet, considering the wind has been blowing for two weeks straight.

It was a very good hit.

Where has Dupuis been the past few games? Sick?

Love the effort at the end of the game. A few quick hit thoughts before I forget them:

- Ryan Stoa finally showed up to play a game. I mentioned to Beachie early in the game how Stoa rarely ever “hits” someone but rather kind of skates into them and the guy falls over. Imagine if he EVER tapped into any kind of aggression.
- SoS needs to stop flailing his stick around like a maniac all the time. More and more it seems like every shot he takes flutters at the net. There’s almost no juice behind them. He’s the Jamie Moyer of shooters.
- More and more I see Holos on the ice and have no opinion at all. I’m not excited anymore but I don’t dread it, either. He’s settled nicely into the 6th defenseman’s “meh” role.
- Brandon Yip has to go. He’s not an NHL caliber hockey player and CONSISTENTLY hurts his team more than he helps it. I have no idea why he continues to play and Dupuis sits unless there’s an injury I’m unaware of. Dupuis on his worst day is still a hard worker.
- Ryan O’Reilly continues to shine with his grasp on the nuances of the game. He does so many small things you never see on TV that put him in positions to succeed. The points are starting to roll in, thank god, so hopefully this is him starting to come of age a bit.
- I have no idea if Kevin Porter will ever have a comfortable role on an NHL team. He’s a Top 6 kind of guy who skates real well and when he’s on is a disruptive force who finds himself creating plenty of chances. He struggles quite a bit in the defensive zone and doesn’t do anything exceptionally well, though, and on a good offensive team may not have a place.
-Our goaltending is such an embarrassment. We have to play nearly the perfect game every time we hit the ice because way, way too many soft goals are being given up consistently. Scoring is hard in the NHL for everyone except when they’re playing us. We just make it too damn easy.
-Lastly, Cameron Gaunce is doin me proud. He was out there constantly tonight, he sticks up for his teammates and tonight his decision-making was just so good. He’s calm with the puck, sees the ice well and is in the right position more often than not. Some hiccups, no doubt, but the guy has a long, long career ahead of him in this league assuming he stops taking fighting lessons from David Koci.

My highlight at tonight’s game was seeing Tomas Fleischmann in his pimpin’ civilian clothes and telling him I hope he gets better soon. He responded with a smile, nod & a “yeah.”

I quickly continued on as I’m certain Flash didn’t want to be bothered as he had a beautiful lady hanging with him.

Huge night for Johnson. Phaneuf broke the glass behind the net in warm-ups. He was a douche the rest of the night however. Glad to see Awesome Guance come to fight for downed homie Olver even if he did get slaughtered in the fight. One of the nastiest, non-skate related cuts I’ve seen in a while.

Two more miserable games for me stuck witnessing live in the Can.

Some impressions from watching the replays -

 - That hit on Olver was clean. Pretty much. A rough hit on a little guy, but I wouldn’t call it dirty.
 - That second goal was played really badly by O’Byrne. Not only did he wiff on that rebound clear very badly, but he was the one that bobbled the puck in the neutral zone and caused the turnover.
 - On that second Leaf goal, Elliott needs to be tight to that post, unless he is sure that the puck is moving away from that side. I wonder what the communication is like on the ice between Wilson (who was fighting for the puck) and Ells, and if there was some mis/lack of communication there.
 - Matt Duchene is playing like a man possessed. If he can keep it up, hes going to be something awfully special.
 - Great tip on that third Toronto goal.
 - Thank God we got someone on the point that can accurately put a hard shot on net. We have been missing even a semblance of that for years.
 - The Phil Kessel PP goal was just good, simple puck movement. Its the type of PP that I have always admired, and I wish the Avs did more of it.
 - Guance did have a couple of rookie mistakes, but I think he has the chops to make it in the NHL. On the Avs blueline, for sure.

This team still makes me happy. The next few years are going to be great.

I’m going to both games… sigh.

Did anyone hear the banter between Raycroft and McNabb about the hit on Olver? I wanted to get a few peoples take on that. Me personally I fully agree with Raycroft, it was Holos’s fault for such a crappy pass that it put Olver in danger. I dont want to see hard hockey hits taken from the game. I thought the hit was clean, even McNabb said the hit was clean. I think the players should be responsible for their own safety, which means get your head up. I am all about eliminating the boarding hits, but now I see players intentionally turning face first into the boards when a check is coming. If players are going to get a 5 min major for boarding then give at least a two minute minor to the guy who puts himself in danger.

However, Winnik is getting back to the player he was at the beginning of the year. I hope this Winnik sticks around. Gaunce WOW. I like him, a LOT.

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