Quotes on the Game

Game One of the Western Conference Quarterfinals between the Colorado Avalanche and San Jose Sharks was a tight, hard-hitting, defensive-minded affair with a total of three goals scored. And two of those tallies could be classified as either fortunate bounces or flat out fluky, depending on your viewpoint. Game Two was a very different story. - Craig Stancher, ColoradoAvalanche.com

It was a difficult loss for the Avs, who were seconds away from going home with control of the series. Now they will think about a missed chance to extend the lead with a two-man advantage for 38 seconds in the third period, the late goal by Pavelski, the lack of a penalty on Rob Blake for a hit on T.J. Galiardi in overtime and then the penalty to Foote. - Associated Press

The Sharks' goals in regulation came from the defense and every line except their top one as Manny Malhotra, Rob Blake and Scott Nichol tallied in addition to Pavelski and Setoguchi. Colorado got two goals from both Chris Stewart and Milan Hejduk as well as one from Brandon Yip. - David Pollak, San Jose Mercury News

Because here's what that goal meant: The Sharks can breathe again, too.They can go to Denver with the series tied. They can go to Denver with the knowledge that coming from behind against the Avalanche is more than possible, because the Sharks did it five times in one game. - Mark Purdy, San Jose Mercury News

The referees were just brutally bad tonight. The first two games of this series saw atrocious, incompetent, mind-numbingly terrible officiating – a total disgrace to the game of hockey.  - Adrian Dater, All Things Avs

"I feel a little bit responsible, not putting in those two chances I had. He came up big when he had to," Duchene said. "Andy played great for us and didn't have any chance on that last one." - Adrian Dater, Denver Post

Ultimately, although inept for much of the night and drastically outplayed, Nabokov was the goalie able to celebrate with his teammates, as Devin Setoguchi's power-play goal at 5:22 of overtime gave the Sharks the wild 6-5 victory to even the series at 1-1. - Terry Frei, Denver Post

This is not to say that Nabokov had a good game. In fact, this was easily his second worst game of the year. The only game where Evgeni was worse, was in his county's collapse against Canada in the 2010 Olympic games. But the Sharks did for Nabokov what Russia could not, they repeatedly pushed back against a Colorado team and responded to each goal with a goal of their own. Never in the Sharks history have they come back from a deficit five times, let alone in the playoffs. This isn't last year's Sharks. This is a different team, as the players have stated all season. The staff, and the fans, are starting to buy into that sentiment. - Ivano27, Fear the Fin

"I really didn't make the saves that I could have tonight," he said. "I was hoping to make that one big save to get the guys going. But they definitely had their game on. They did a hell of a job by putting the pucks in the net and showing character out there." - Mark Emmons, San Jose Mercury News

As each day passes that Mueller does not skate, the chances diminish that he'll be able to play in the first round of the playoffs. - Denver Post

Avs fans, we are lucky to have Mark Rycroft analyzing games.  A breath of fresh air in a world full of Brian Engblom’s and Mark Mibury’s. But not sure if we’re lucky to have Mr. Dater.  I got no problem with his blog - actually really good stuff there, required reading for any serious Avs fan, but his Twitter feed has become unbearable.  Nothing but tweets about awful play by the Avs, guaranteed losses and whining about the refs.  Sorry, Dater - you’ve forced me to unfollow you. - Sean Payton, Anyone But Detroit

Best part of the night? The bipolar San Jose "fans." This group of nut-jobs would boo their team when they were down and cheer them like every point they put up on the boards was a Stanley Cup winning goal. I’ll never be able to understand these people as they live in a completely different mental dimension than the rest of us. - Burgundy Blog