Drop the Puck!

So after two utterly frustrating weekends of college hockey it’s come to this. The first round of the WCHA playoffs is looming in the very near future. The Denver Pioneers with host the University of Wisconsin Badgers for a best of three series March 9-11. It is shaping up to be quite dogfight with the Badgers fighting to defend their National Championship and Denver looking to secure an NCAA tournament berth. Predictions on this series have been all over the place, mostly Wisconsin taking the series in three games based on the fact that Brian Elliott has the ability to steal a game (or two). Personally, I’m not sure how much faith I have in the Pioneers after last weekend.

Last Friday was the single most boring, lackluster, LAZY performance I have seen from DU…EVER! The only thing keeping the score from being 8-0 was CC’s poor team play. Glenn Fisher’s performance, which was mediocre at best, didn’t help matters. The defense suffered with the suspension of Cody Brookwell (for a still unspecified offense) and the offense was non-existent…

Saturday was not much of an improvement for DU, who, behind the completely uninspired play of Peter Mannino, allowed 5 power play goals, three of which came in the 1st period. Of those three, two came on a 5 minute major penalty to Cody Brookwell who was ejected from the game for checking from behind, a very poor play by him to be sure. The one upside to that game was that DU was able to come from behind and tied the game to earn 1 point against CC for this season. I have to admit, I was in attendance at the World Arena on Saturday night but was so disappointed with DU’s play that I left with two minutes remaining in the game, thereby missing DU’s comeback…While CC won the Gold Pan Trophy for the first time in three years, it makes me feel better to know that the original Gold Pan is in safe hands….

I dearly hope that the disappointment of losing on Senior Night and coming away with only 1 point out of a total 8 from play with CC is motivation enough to fire up the Pioneers for this weekend.

Meanwhile the Colorado Avalanche are riding a season high 5 game win streak! The Avs have put in 5 solid efforts against the Columbus Blue Jackets, the Chicago Blackhawks, the Detroit Redwings, the Boston Bruins, and the Buffalo Sabres. To top if all off, Paul Stastny broke the franchise record for rookie point streak and has tied the NHL record held by Teemu Selanne with is 17 game point streak. The Avalanche will have a chance to win a 6th straight game when they visit the Minnesota Wild this coming Sunday.

On a side note, this scathing blog regarding Erik Johnson’s interview with John Buccigross is absolutely hilarious and true…ENJOY!