Avs Finish Up A Memorable Season
By Craig Stancher
04.25.2010 / 1:37 AM
As the saying goes, all good things must come to an end.
In this particular instance, the “good thing” was the Colorado Avalanche’s 2009-10 season, which came to a close Saturday night at Pepsi Center with a 5-2 loss to the San Jose Sharks in Game Six of the Western Conference Quarterfinals.
Expectations were low heading into the campaign for a club that finished 15th in the Western Conference with 69 points a year ago. However, this young Avalanche squad was on a mission from day one of training camp to prove all the skeptics wrong.
In the end, the Avalanche enjoyed a 26-point turnaround and gained a berth in the postseason thanks to a number of variables, including, but not limited to, drafting Matt Duchene and Ryan O’Reilly, signing goaltender Craig Anderson, getting significant contributions from a large number of rookies and the leadership of a small but strong group of veterans.
From start to finish, Colorado’s season has been quite a journey and can only be viewed as a resounding success. Most teams that go through a youth movement tend to sit near the bottom of the league standings for a few years, but Colorado’s renaissance took a fraction of that time. The Avalanche contended for the Northwest Division crown for much of the year and gave the No. 1 seed San Jose Sharks all they could handle in the Western Conference Quarterfinals.
"I think something special is in here, because no one quit. You can see that in this game, no one quit," said captain Adam Foote. "We made a few adjustments, it seemed like we had momentum. We just pressed a little bit, we had nothing to lose. They got an odd-man rush, and that was the game. They’ll tell you, they had their hands full."
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Kiszla: San Jose Sharks not mentally equipped to make dent in playoffs
By Mark Kiszla
Denver Post
4/13/2010
In the eat-or-be-eaten world of the NHL playoffs, the Sharks usually choke.
So you gotta love Avalanche coach Joe Sacco for messing with the heads of players in San Jose, which might be the most feeble-minded team in pro hockey.
"We are the underdog, no question. I think the pressure is on San Jose," Sacco said Monday. "If you look at the last few years, (the Sharks) haven't met their expectations as a team. I think they had higher expectations than what they've achieved. And it's going to be our job this year to try to make sure that happens again."
Nonstop psychological warfare and the prickly nature of verbal needling deserve to be placed near the top of a long list of reasons there is no postseason tournament in sports as deliciously lowbrow fun as the NHL playoffs.
As the eighth seed in the Western Conference, the Avs could not have requested a more advantageous first-round matchup.
The 113 points compiled by San Jose in the regular-season standings might be the most meaningless number in the NHL.
When the playoffs begin, they cease being Sharks.
They turn into clown fish.
In the name of accuracy, San Jose really should adopt an alternative uniform in April.
Dump that teal sweater with a shark chomping a hockey stick. That mean image doesn't fit the joke that San Jose becomes when the games really matter.
Wouldn't it be more appropriate if San Jose star Joe Thornton took the ice against Colorado while wearing an orange-and-white uniform featuring a cuddly cartoon from "Finding Nemo" as the team logo?
Ladies and gentlemen, please hold your applause and try to refrain from laughter until the next flop from San Jose is complete. When the NHL does spring cleaning, the first chore is to flush the Sharks.
The record of San Jose's playoff ineptitude from 2006-09 can be summarized in four words: gag, gag, gag, gag.
So let the gamesmanship begin.
When I asked Sacco if he relished the psychological aspect of playoff hockey, where getting under an opponent's skin can be half the battle, the first-year Avalanche coach responded with a mischievous twinkle in his eyes that would do Patrick Roy proud.
"I want our players to be on edge. You're playing a team maybe seven times in 14 days. The same team. So it's important that you stay on edge," said Sacco, who speaks from more than 700 games of NHL experience as a player. "Psychologically, it becomes a matter of will."
In a city where Josh McDaniels cannot order pancakes from the breakfast menu without some Broncomaniac in the kitchen griping about what an idiotic decision the coach has made, Sacco has gone virtually unnoticed while guiding the upstart young Avs to the playoffs.
That's really a crying shame, because Sacco can be as delightfully direct and as brutally honest as the backcheck-forecheck-paycheck mentality celebrated by old-time hockey lovers.
Read full story here.
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Stewart gets first hat trick in Colorado win
Associated Press 3/6/2010
DENVER — Chris Stewart completed his first NHL hat trick with a penalty shot, and Milan Hejduk scored twice in his return from a seven-week injury layoff to help the Colorado Avalanche beat the St. Louis Blues 7-3 on Saturday night.
Craig Anderson made 39 saves in his team-record 20th consecutive start for
Colorado. The Avalanche beat St. Louis for the third time in three meetings this
season, snapping the Blues' season-high five-game winning streak.
To view pictures click here.
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Coyotes get scoring help in Wolski
The Colorado Avalanche sent former first-round draft pick Wojtek Wolski to the Phoenix Coyotes for another former first-rounder, Peter Meuller, and Hobey Baker Award winner Kevin Porter.
Wolski, a forward, is the significant piece of this deal, adding to a Coyotes
lineup that is starved for offense.
"Wojtek Wolski is a terrific young offensive player," Coyotes general manager Don Maloney in a statement. "He is a talented goal scorer that will help us offensively and on the power play. He has great size and is just entering the prime of his career."
To read full story click here.
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Avs' Tucker (concussion) on injured list
October 26, 2009, 2:08 PM ET
DENVER -- The Colorado Avalanche have placed Darcy Tucker on the injured list three days after he suffered a concussion on a check from Carolina's Tuomo Ruutu.
The team announced the move on Monday, when it also recalled forward Chris Durno from the Lake Erie Monsters of the AHL to fill Tucker's place on the roster.
Ruutu rode Tucker into the boards in the second period on Friday night. The Avalanche forward's face hit the glass and he fell to the ice unconscious.
Team doctors and trainers placed a neck brace on Tucker, who lay motionless for several minutes, and strapped him to a backboard. He was taken off the ice and to the hospital, where he was released Saturday.
The NHL suspended Ruutu three games for a boarding infraction.
Copyright 2009 by The Associated Press
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Duchene, O'Reilly ... Why Avs chose to keep both
By Pierre LeBraun
ESPN.com
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
The Colorado Avalanche announced this week they're keeping both 18-year-old centers and not returning them to junior hockey, a huge accomplishment for both kids. Once they play in their 10th NHL game Friday night, their NHL entry-level contracts will kick in regardless of whether they are sent back down to junior later. They're in for the long haul.
"Certainly their play dictated the majority of that decision, along with the fact our head coach and coaching staff were very comfortable with these two players, both Matt and Ryan, not only with their minutes but also in crucial parts of the game," Avs GM Greg Sherman told ESPN.com.
I had a close look at both kids Oct. 13 in Toronto and couldn't believe my eyes. We all knew Duchene was the real deal. He went third overall in the 2009 draft, but some scouts believed he was good enough to challenge John Tavares for first overall. Watching him speed through the Maple Leafs like a hot knife through butter cemented my impression that he was already NHL-ready.Read full story here.
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Colorado Avalanche
Media Relations
Denver
Pierre Lacroix issued the following statement:
“We
are too proud of what we have accomplished in this market to ignore
where we are and what happened in just a very short period of time.
Ownership and the dedicated Avalanche fans throughout the region
deserve better results.
“The
immediate future of this franchise is my primary concern so it was
important to act now and start the process of restoring this franchise
to where it belongs.”
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By Adrian Dater
The Denver Post
On a night the Avs lost another key player to an injury — Milan Hejduk (jaw) — they also dropped a 4-1 decision to the St. Louis Blues at the The Avs (25-27-1) had never been below .500 this late in a season.
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