Avs Powerless Against Leaves Powerplay

There isn't a whole lot to say about this game, so I'm going to keep it short so we can all move on and enjoy our Christmas. The Avs started out well, getting zone time and shots to the net. Jack Skille got the Avs on the board first. Cody McLeod made a Duchene-like spin move behind the net to embarrass Dion Phaneuf,and fed the puck to Erik Johnson. Johnson made a great cross ice pass to Skille who was waiting by the net to bury it. 1-0 Avs. Komarov scored on a pretty nice snipe on the powerplay. Joffrey Lupul then scored on a nice between-the-legs pass by Komarov. On the power play. The period ends 2-1 Leaves.

The Avs started off the second controlling the play again. The Avs scored early in the period to tie it up. Alex Tanguay made a great pass through the slot to John Mitchell, who tapped the puck with his backhand past Bernie. Tie game. The Avs, tempting fate, took another penalty. Fate immediately donkey punched the Avs, as Komarov scored another power play goal, this one a tip (just a little bit, just to see how it feels.) The Avs came back late in the period with a power play goal of their own. Erik Johnson scored on a tic-tac-toe passing play with Barrie and Landeskog. Apparently there are actually times the Avs realize having and extra player means they should have the advantage.

The third period in this game shall henceforth be known as "The Period Tyler Bozak Set Out to Prove the Avs Should Have Traded Stastny for Bozak and a 2nd." This period also made me wonder whether they were watching Christmas movies in the locker room during intermission, because the entire team checked out for Christmas break early. Just 49 seconds into the period, THE Tyler Bozak and JVR got a 2 on 1, and JVR fed a perfect pass to Bozak, who tipped the puck past Varly. A little later, Bozak scored on the breakaway. Despite his shortcomings, (and they are short, short comings, based on the rumors I am making up for the purposes of this joke), Bozak is money on the breakaway. JVR then got a goal, tipping a shot from the point. Bozak scored on another breakaway, this time scoring like Varly wasn't even there (because he wasn't, Roy pulled him for the extra attacker.) If you are counting, this makes three goals in this game for Tyler Bozak, giving him a hat trick. Jack Skille, who apparently stopped thinking about egg nog long enough to realize he was playing in a professional hockey match, scored on a semi-breakaway.  This game sucked. On the upside, the Wild embarrassed themselves in two ways tonight: co-opting the Stars' history for their alumni game jerseys, then blowing a 2 goal lead at home to said Stars.

Avs Three Stars

1st Star: Jack Skille- He did many more good things than bad things.

2nd Star: Erik Johnson- He did more good things than bad things

3rd Star: Santa Claus- I'm hoping by giving him a star he fills the Avs' with a January as good as December was, and fills all red wings stockings with coal (this is more a humanitarian effort than anything, because detroit is such an apocalyptic wasteland, people really need that coal for warmth.)