Avalanche-Ducks: Colorado Shut Out Anaheim for Fifth Straight Win

I'm not sure why the "defending champs" line has to be repeated every couple of sentences, but that might just be the chucklehead in me coming out.

The Avalanche played a solid game from start to finish, including some superb goaltending from Jose Theodore, some solid defense from the whole squad, and a lone goal coming from Wojtek Wolski.

The main reason Wolski is back in the lineup is the injuries to Ryan Smyth and Marek Svatos, so it's good to see him get a bit of the monkey off his back.

Fingered

Jeff Finger returned to the lineup last night and Jordan Leopold found himself watching from the press box.

Some people were curious why Leopold was out rather than Sauer, but Sauer answered that question with solid, phsyical play last night against a big and tough Ducks team.

Davey Jones' Locker

Seriously, his name is David (Davey Jones) and he's actually got a locker. How cool is that?

Ok, yeah, it's not that cool.

However the play of Davey Jones has been extremely solid of late. He had a couple games where he was playing on a line with Joe Sakic and that really seemed to break him out of his shell.

In his first couple of games with the club he was a bit tentative, and you could tell he was really trying to prove himself.

But after playing wing with Sakic, he appears to have settled down and is worrying about the game, not about whether he'll be back in Cleveland tomorrow.

He's solid, he's got wheels, and he appears to have some decent hands.

He better not be fooling us all because I'm starting to expect big things from him a couple years down the line.

Hyperbole and Hijinx

I don't mind Haynes and McNab as an announcing duo, but I do wish they wouldn't sugarcoat everything.

Last night Peter McNab declared that Peter Forsberg's return against the Canucks "Could not have been a bigger success."

Well...he could have scored a goal. Or two. Or three.

That would have been a bigger success.

As it was, his return was very good, but to claim it couldn't have been better is just blowing smoke up people's you-know-what.

And it appears that the duo wasn't communicating well during breaks last night because it wasn't until the dying minutes of the third period that Haynes finally called No. 39 on the Ducks as Doug Weight rather than Sami Kapanen.

McNab had to have caught that slip up on one of the dozen times Haynes made it, so why didn't he give him a quick shout during a tv timeout or intermission?

Lines

Forsberg—Sakic—Hejduk

Wolski—Stastny—Brunette

McLeod—Arnason—Jones

Parker—Guite—Laperriere

Notes

-Theodore made great point blank saves on both Perry and Getzlaf, which I felt was a nice statement after all the hype those two (deservedly) got

-Who told Liles that shooting from the point on the PP is ok? (it's about time!)

-The Avs didn't back down from the Ducks physical game and having Finger around certainly helped

-What was with Hejduk going offside so much?

-Jonas Hiller played a great game

Related Links

In the Cheap Seats Recap
Denver Post Recap
RMN Recap
Ducks Run Amok