So, any good players available in the draft this summer? As of right now, the Avalanche would have the 8th pick in the draft. In 2010, the 8th overall pick was Alexander Burmistov. Nope, never heard of him (although I guess he's playing this year). In '09 it was Scott Glennie. Name rings a bell. The year before that was Mikkel Boedker. Too many k's for me to kare. In 08 it was Zach Hamill. Woot. And in '07 it was...frig, it was Peter Mueller. Okay, screw this.
The Avalanche did a lot of things well tonight. But one of the big things they didn't do was win the stupid game. The Avalanche had a lot of offensive pressure (I can only imagine how good they'll be when Chris Stewart returns to the lineup). But, they only managed two very fluky goals by David Jones. Not that David Jones didn't have a newsletter-worthy game, of course, but all the good shots Nik Backstrom stopped easily. Actually, Jones almost had a 3rd goal, but it was waved off because when it was reviewed they discovered that Derek Morris had "accidentally" knocked the net off the moorings. Or something to that effect.
At the other end of the ice...man, who the hell kidnapped Craig Anderson and who is this guy wearing his unipron? I am completely mystified by his performance (or lack thereof). He was pulled after the 3rd goal, which makes this the 20th time out of 31 starts that he's allowed 3 or more goals. I don't know what happened to him, but that is not starting caliber goaltending.
If the Avalanche played in the Eastern Conference, they'd be 3 points out of playoff contention. Actually, they'd probably be doing even better, because they are 8-4-4 against the lesser conference. But they are now 17-20-2 in the West and an embarrassing 5-9-1 in their division. The wheels are falling off in a big way. Through 41 games, the Avs had a goal differential of +16. In the 13 games since? Minus 17.
This Forsberg fella better be really damn good.
- Galiardi, Stastny, Stewart
- Jones, Duchene, Hejduk
- Winnik, O'Reilly, Yip
- McLeod, Dupuis, Porter
- Liles, O'Byrne
- Wilson, Shattenkirk
- Cumiskey, Hunwick
- Both Kyle Cumiskey and TJ Galiardi left the game with an injury. Cumiskey suffered a head injury (yikes) after a (clean) hit by Eric Nystrom knocked Cumiskey's head into the glass. Galiardi's injury I didn't see, but it appears to be a hand injury.
- John-Michael Liles led the Avs in ice time (23:37) and shots (6). Matt Hunwick was a +2 (and had, I thought, a very solid game).
- If the Altitude graphic I caught was correct, the Avs are now 15-3-2 in games where one of their players scored 2 or more goals. And two of those 3 losses are to the Wild.
The Avs are in Columbus on Friday and Nashville on Saturday.