Avalanche Struck by Lightning 4-0

For the second straight game, the Avalanche had an extremely underwhelming performance and were throttled by one of the Stanley Cup Final representatives of the previous year. The Blackhawks and Lightning combined to outscore the Avalanche 10-3 the last two games. That's not desirable for a team who wants to eventually reach the point where those teams were last spring.

A very sad, crappy, and depressing effort from the Avalanche, who after gaining so much momentum by getting in the playoff race after beating the Predators on Friday, have completely stalled and have to do some soul searching now to get back to where they were just four nights ago.

1st Period: The first period was a big pile of elephant dung for the Avalanche. The Lightning had the puck in the Colorado zone almost the entire time and would score right after a power play via Ondrej Palat. Varlamov had stood on his head the entire penalty kill, but could not keep the Lightning from putting one on the score sheet. Blake Comeau drew a penalty against Tampa Bay late in the period, but Denver native Ben Bishop stopped the chances the Avalanche got, leading to a scoreless opening for the Avs.

2nd Period: The Avalanche played period number two like they were taking a number two of their own. Steven Stamkos scored less than two minutes into the period, then got another one a few minutes later to make it 3-0 Lightning. As NBC analyst Brian Englom then aptly described, Patrick Roy began "playing with the bingo machine" and mixed up Colorado's lines. It did not work. The Avs continued to generate little to no offense and the Lightning had a couple other good looks to distance themselves from Colorado even more.

3rd Period: Tyler Johnson made it 4-0 twelve minutes into the period and eventually this game just shut up and died.

Mr. Fish's Three Sardines:

Basically everybody with the Tampa Bay Lightning.

Mr. Fish's Three Flounders:

Basically everybody with the Colorado Avalanche.

Lots of blame to go around, from coach to players, let the anger and revolutionary ideas to get the ship going in the right direction commence...

NOW!