The fact that Joe Sacco & Co. have put managed to put out a scrappily effective defense most nights, and especially lately, is another sign that the Avalanche front office chose wisely when they promoted Sacco to head coach from his post at the Lake Erie Monsters.
I’m running out of ways to talk about how competitive the NHL West is this season. To stay afloat, the Avalanche will need to beat some good teams this week… starting with a home-away series versus the Stanley Cup Champion Chicago Blackhawks.
This series really could go either way but I’m leaning toward San Jose around 66%. I think the Avalanche win this series 1 in 3 times. Finding a way to get the offense and the defense going at the same time seems to be the largest obstacle for Colorado right now.
Unfortunately, the big win against the West’s best team was marred by a dirty blind-side hit on Mueller by ex-Av Rob Blake. You may remember Blake as the shifty creep who screwed the Avalanche into paying him while he played for the LA Kings. Now, he will also be remembered as the slow old defender who couldn’t keep up with Mueller and the rest of the speedy Avalanche forwards… so he took the coward’s way out again.
Once again we find that hockey, like all sports, is a game where it doesn’t matter if you are the better team for a longer period of time. It only matters if you make your opportunities count.
A big win over the Coyotes kept the Avalanche on-pace with Vancouver. Now Colorado will try to stretch their league-best win streak to 5 games against the Kings
