Avs at Calgary: 3-6

Oh this was just terrible to watch. In the first period, I thought the Avs really had a chance. They came out kind of flat, but picked it up as the period went on. Then Super Joe scored at 14:26. An amazing goal in a wide open net, completely fooled Kiprusoff...then 25 seconds late, Super Joe scored again, in a wide open net. His line (Brunette, Hejduk, Sakic) has a way of fooling everybody and leaving somebody wide open for an "easy" goal. The Avs took a 2-1 lead into the 1st intermission.
During this break, Peter McNab (aka the Devil incarnate) interviewed Propecia Joe. He was absolutely ADORABLE. I know, I know that word should not be applied to a hockey player, but truly, he was just too cute. Maybe cute is not the word. TOTALLY HOT!! He had on a suit with a button down shirt and no tie with the top buttons of his shirt opened...mmmm. It was a great interview too. I missed the very beginning, but he talked about finally getting the chance to skate today and how extremely excited he is to be playing for a "classy organization like the Avalanche." Now I know, he was prolly coached to say those things, but they seemed REALLY genuine. Honestly, I can't remember what else he said, cuz I was just too preoccupied with the look of him. He's got incredible eyes...anyways...
In the second period, the Avs just didn't play like they wanted to win. Again they came out flat and couldn't keep control of the puck. Calgary scored THREE unanswered goals in the second period. It was just terrible. Going into the second intermission, the score was 4-2, Calgary.
In the third period, things went from bad to worse. At one point the Avs had a 5 on 3 man advantage for a full minute and 26 seconds and they couldn't score!! I firmly believe that if a team can't score on a 5 on 3, they can't win a game, and it was proved tonight. Cody McCormick scored at 5:55 in the third to cut Calgary's lead to 2, but about three minutes later, Calgary scored again for a score of 5-3. The Avs lost any chance of making a comeback when a shitty call allowed a penalty shot for Calgary's Lombardi. It was such a dumb call. Yes there should have been a penalty because he was tripped but the trip didn't call for a penalty shot as Lombardi had a chance to get a shot off that Budaj made a clean save on. Needless to say, the shot went in 5 hole for the final score of 6-3. After the penalty shot, Budaj was pulled and Kolesnik (who hasn't played since March 9th, which is not his fault) was put in cold. He made one save that was really great.
All in all, I would not blame Budaj completely for the loss. Sure, he let in some flukey goals and he needs to work on closing his 5 hole as several of the goals went through there, but he was not supported by the D at all. He seems to be able to grab pucks out of the air quite well, also seems to see through screens well too. But when the opposing team is charging the net and being relentless on rebounds, while the D corp is busy trying to be offensive defensemen, Budaj is definitely going to have a hard time.
At any rate, having the next couple of days off should be helpful (although the team had not played since Tuesday before tonight), not to mention they will be playing at home on Monday against the Chicago Blackhawks. While Chicago doesn't have a great record and has no chance of getting into the playoffs even if they won every one of their last games, they are still a dangerous team to play right now. They have nothing to lose...They showed this tonight by beating Dallas who stand in second place in the Western Conference. This is not team to be taken lightly. Hopefully the Avs will refocus a bit and be able to turn in a better performance in front of their home crowd on Monday.

~Catie