Avs vs. Sharks 1-2

"Hockey is like heroin. Only drug addicts do heroin. It's not like a recreational drug. It’s never like, No, that's O.K., I'm not going to have heroin. You guys go right ahead. Hockey is kind of the same way. Only hockey fans watch hockey.''
Chris Rock in SI 9-26-05

I love this quote. So very true…

So the Avs lost last night. There were some bright spots in the game though. Budaj played so well. He made 30 saves on 32 shots with 16 minutes of being down a man. He really gave the Avs a chance to win it. Plus I am not completely convinced that the first goal scored by the Sharks, a crazy shot by Joe Thornton, was actually a goal. It hit the left post and appeared to just pop right off the post. There didn’t appear to be review of the goal. So I’m guessing the ref had a good view of it, but still, it just didn’t look like a goal.

Another good thing was Joe Sakic extended his point streak to 11 games, Andrew Brunette extended his point streak to 6 games, and Milan Hejduk extended his point streak to 5 games. This could also be seen as a bad thing, as the Avs don’t seem to be getting a whole lot of production from their three other lines.

Major problem: penalties! The Avs had 8 penalties for 16 minutes to the Sharks’ 2 penalties. The Avs managed to make it through a minute of 5-3 disadvantage during the second period. However, those 16 minutes really tired out the PK guys and made it that much harder for the Avs to win.

Other notes on the game: I got to see Matt Carle play for the first time since he signed with the Sharks after deciding to forego his senior year at DU. It was great! He looked pretty solid on the Power Play and in general. He was on the ice for 12 minutes and was a minus 1. It was really hard not to root for him because I think he is an amazing player and I’m so used to rooting for whatever team he is playing one!

At one point, Antti Laaksonan was handling the puck and Matt Carle was Defending against him and I just starting thinking about how special DU’s hockey program is…it was a great moment!

~Catie