Eurolanche

Postgame thoughts: Wings and Bruins

First of all, I'm sick and throwing up, so any ramblings should be forgiven. But is it me or are we looking at the 09-10 season, when the goalie helped a mediocre offense reach the playoffs? Sure, the goalie isn't the same but the reactions are the same. "Varly is great", "Finally, we have a good goalie since Roy". Really? Since Roy? So Andy was what when he pushed the team in the playoffs and helped them look decent against the Sharks? Remember the 50 shots shotout? When the Can was screaming his name? I guess it's easy to forget. So Varlamov shouldn't rest on his laurels. As soon as he asks for a longer contract and doesn't get it, he'll be ostracized by the management and fans for "quitting on them".

Anyways, the goalie is the good part of the new Avs. But the offense... One goal in two games. They should consider themselves extremely lucky they got two points with that abysmal 0.5 goals per game average. It wasn't for lack of trying, that is true. Rask had a great game for the Bruins. And you can argue that the team looked way better than against Detroit. Because, let's face it, against the Red Wings the Avs played awful. On the opening night, on the Peter Forsberg night... Not nice!

Two games are not a big enough sample to draw any conclusions, but that never stopped me before, so here's what I came up with.

- The Avs got better at starting a game strong. Now they have to do that thing with the "playing 60 minutes".

- The 3rd line is awesome, so far. Landeskog plays well above his years, O'Reilly is as good defensive as we knew, plus he shows his offensive side more.

- Varlamov plays like he's possessed. I guess having something to prove doesn't hurt. But was he worth a 1st and a 2nd round pick? That remains to be seen.

- Duchene has some sick moves, but we already knew that. And is it me or does he seem more responsible defensively?

- The bigger defense truly is a better defense. I like Hejda a lot. And Wilson is back to his hitting ways.

- I'd like to see more from Stastny. And the Mueller-Duchene-Hejduk chemistry from two years ago.

- The lack of scoring should be rectified and I guess using Lindstrom wouldn't hurt. Kobasew is not a scorer, his place is not in the 1st line.

- Sacco added new dimensions to the idea of stupid coaching by pulling the goalie when the Red Wings had the puck. I saw something more stupid just once, when a coach pulled the goalie with 7 minutes left on the clock, when the opponent only led by a goal. But that was the lowly Romanian league, not the NHL. So good one, Mr. Sacco!