Ex-Av Ryan Smith put double daggers into the Avalanche on Monday night
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This game was a battle for 6th & 7th in the Western Conference, and both teams knew it. Los Angeles & Colorado came out to play, with the game featuring lots of give ‘n take play to go with tit-for-tat scoring.
On a night when the Avalanche needed two points badly to make up for a couple of bad games in a row, they fought hard the whole game through. The contest was what you would expect of two teams battling for position going into the Stanley Cup playoffs.
The 1st Period was played in stretches of offensive dominance. A back-and-forth dual of puck control and disciplined defense was punctuated by rare scoring chances. Neither team won great battles, and the Avalanche only scored the first goal thanks to a lucky bounce.
Christ Stewart tried a diagonal pass towards the opposite corner of the net from his position at the top of the left circle. A Kings defenseman tried to deflect the puck wide, and instead put it past goalie Jonathan Quick for what amounted to an own-goal.
The Avalanche got the next big break too, but failed to capitalize. Quick put himself out of position behind the net, made an ill-advised pass up ice, and TJ Galiardi intercepted. Faced with an open net except for the goalie’s outstretched stick, Galiardi put the puck high and wide of everything. The hockey gods frown on such an obvious chance break a game open on unfriendly ice, and the Avalanche committed a penalty moments later. A tic-tac-toe goal followed on the Power Play, with the toe being ex-Av Ryan Smyth.
A 1-1 tie out of the opening period in LA is nothing to be ashamed of… unless you had a chance to go up 2-0 on a freebie by the goaltender. TJ didn’t look quite right the rest of the game, making a number of defensive errors and virtually disappearing on offense.
The 2nd Period was played almost entirely in neutral ice. Neither team could gain a lengthy foothold in the opponent’s zone… except for an extended play on a defensive zone turnover behind the Colorado net. The Kings’ Wayne Simmonds skated out as Avalanche defender Brett Clark watched from in front of the crease and tucked a backhand between Craig Anderson’s legs for the go-ahead goal.
Period three was played much looser than the previous two. Each offense took turns taking open shots on Anderson & Quick. The Avalanche finally turned one of their many breakaways into a goal when Peter Mueller to a great pass through the Neutral Zone from Milan Hejduk and slotted it home just inside the right post. The 2-2 tie lasted just five minutes, and an attempted pass across the Colorado crease from Ryan Smyth ended up in the net. That evened out the two teams in the lucky-break department, and Smyth netted his second goal of the game.
The Avalanche dominated much of the rest of the period, but expended entirely too much energy in doing so. In the last five minutes, Colorado looked sluggish by comparison to the Kings, and Los Angeles got more chances than the Avalanche despite playing defensive-minded hockey. The Kings’ puck-possession style trapped Colorado in their own zone until just outside the 1:00 mark when a puck over the glass stopped play.
The Avalanche won the faceoff, and despite their apparent exhaustion managed to skate free long enough to get Anderson to the bench. Los Angeles was still winning most of the possession battles, but the Avalanche continued to narrowly avoid an empty-net chance for Kings. With 0:10 left, Paul Stastny entered the zone off a Peter Mueller pass, deked twice to Quick’s left, and forced a shot that slid to the middle of the crease. TJ Galiardi, crashing the net with all the passion of a would-be hero, slammed the rebound home over the prone Jonathan Quick just as LA defenders slammed him to the ice.
The resulting Overtime was all Los Angeles. The Avalanche were clearly out of energy after a rough game the night before in Anaheim, and a physical three periods versus the Kings. Ruslan Salei committed a necessary Cross-checking penalty to stop a goal-scoring chance, and the Kings scored quickly on a screened slap-shot from the point.
In the end, the Avalanche got a single point to stay two ahead of Detroit, and the Kings stayed two steps ahead with two points and a game-in-hand over Colorado. LA tied Nashville at 89 points, but the Predators have only 9 games left to the Kings’ 11. That puts the Kings at 5th and the Predators at 6th.
With 10 game left, the Avalanche sit at 87 points and within striking distance of both clubs above them. However, the more pressing matter for Colorado is Detroit in 8th place with 85 points.
The Red Wings have made a late-season charge back into the playoff field after injuries and issues with consistency kept them below the rest of the very strong West. Calgary is hovering at 81 points, and do not look poised to make a strong move over Detroit or Colorado. The Flames have lost the season series to the Avalanche, making Detroit more vulnerable going into the final stretch.
These last ten games are all against top-flight teams (except for a brief respite in Edmonton), and will make for a brutal road to the playoffs. Unless the Avalanche right the ship, particularly in their six remaining home games, they may see themselves on the outside look in come mid-April.
