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Avs Blow 3 Goal Lead, Northwest Division, 4-6
Written by Sean Payton   
Wednesday, 10 March 2010 00:53
nucks

Well, that was awful - for obvious reasons that I’m not going to restate.
  • The Avs simply had no answer for the Sedins / Samuelsson line.
  • Stastny had an awful night, no other way to put it.  The play of the game for me was his horrible turnover that lead to Samuelsson’s 3rd of the night with less than 2min left in the 3rd.  From that point on, Vancouver was clearly back in the game and they dominated from there on out.  Stastny was on the ice on all 4 goals the Sedins / Samuelsson line scored.  Offensively, he had a couple of golden chances to score and couldn’t bury them.  You’d like your highest paid player to come through a little better in such an important game.  Disappointing.
  • Kyle Quincey wasn’t much better.
  • I couldn’t believe Vancouver didn’t pull Luongo after Duchene made it 3-0 and then again after Mueller made it 4-1.  Vancouver plays on Wed, a back to back situation in Phoenix, the last game of the record long 14 game road trip - all signs pointed to "rest Luongo, play him tomorrow".  Well, Luongo shut down the Avs from that point on, including a big, big stop on Mueller late in the 3rd.  Hats off to Alain Vigneault, he stuck with Luongo and it paid off.
  • The Avs looked very panicked in their own zone for the last half of this game.  Their overall game had a really panicky feel to it - two guys fighting over the same puck - awkward clears - no attack.  It was a slow death that was really tough to watch.
  • Chris Stewart has been able to score 5 hole twice on tough angle shots against Howard and Luongo.  Luck certainly has to play into it, but you have to start to wonder if there something about his shot that makes it tough a goaltender to stop from that spot.
  • If you don’t think the Avs best skater over since the Olympic break is Matt Duchene, you haven’t been paying attention.
  • We need to remember how young this team is.  This game is a very painful / costly lesson for them to learn, it's probably going to cost them any shot at the NW this season, but they'd better learn from it.  Hate to break it to you, fellow Avs fans, but we also need prepare ourselves for a rough 4 games to 0 or 1 playoff beat down at some point.  Hopefully it comes this season - this team is not ready to complete in a playoff hockey games - no matter how good Andy is.  This has been a suspicion I've had for while, but tonight's performance made that crystal clear.
Next game: Thursday home against Florida, 7PM MST


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