Avs win! Avs win!
Ok, it's hardly the reclamation of the Stanley Cup, but after an
0-4-1 start that was making the Rangers and Lightning look good, and
with Patrick Roy playing like Andre Racicot, fans were starting to
wonder.
Problems are still legion: Roy is mediocre right now, Valeri
Kamensky ain't scorin', the power play is struggling and tough
defenseman Adam Foote is saying this season may be his last in
Denver. But, hey, at least we got a win!
After a poor start, the Avalanche reached their nadir (well,
hopefully it's their nadir) getting shut out by Boston. Getting
shut out by Buffalo and Hasek is one thing; getting shut out by
Boston, their 900-year-old defense and Byron Dafoe is quite
another. Colorado did everything they could to help Dafoe along by
playing listlessly, taking penalties and sucking on special teams.
Phoenix, though, looked like a cure-all; whether in Winnipeg or
Arizona, they've always been as good as a bye game for the
Avalanche. Unfortunately, the Coyotes forgot their proper role and
stomped the Avalanche pretty soundly, with the only good points
coming as the Avalanche remembered that it is acceptable to score
points when you got more guys than the other team.
They did their best to keep the losing streak alive against Los
Angeles, but alas, it was not to be. The Kings would pull ahead,
the Avalanche would battle back to tie -- and then give up a soft
goal as the Kings went right back ahead. But in the end,
contributions from two unexpected sources -- Claude Lemieux, who
scored his first goal of the season in the last seconds to tie it
up, and rookie Chris Drury, who got his first two goals -- got the
Avalanche their first point of the season.
There was plenty of subtext in the Edmonton game; the Oilers, after
all, were the scrappy underdogs who rallied to bounce the Avalanche
from the playoffs last year. And plenty went on in the teams' first
meeting of this season, starting with a Foote-Bill Guerin fight 36
seconds in -- a smorgasbord of goals, including Claude Lemieux's
300th (and, for that matter, 301st) of his career; lousy
goaltending, from Roy and whoever plays goal for Edmonton this
week; and fights galore. The power play hopped; Sakic, Forsberg and
Lemieux shone; Jeff Odgers, Foote, Adam Deadmarsh and Jon Klemm
punched; and rookie Milan Hejduk, who I have to cheer for because I
spelled his name wrong last time, picked up his second goal.
Notes:
With Sandis Ozolinsh still holding out of the Avalanche lineup,
Colorado had to find a defenseman to help ease the pain of his
departure. So the Avs picked up Greg de Vries from the Nashville
Predators for a third-round pick in the 1999 draft.
De Vries, 25, played impressive hockey for the Oilers last season
during the team's playoff win over the Avalanche. In 65 games with
the Oilers last year, de Vries had seven goals and four assists
with 80 penalty minutes. The 6-foot-3, 215-pound blueliner has
eight goals and nine assists with 144 penalty minutes in 121 career
games. De Vries has a hard shot, which could fit nicely on the Avs
power play, which is struggling without Ozolinsh.
