CrashingTheGoalie

By Bill Heintz

It’s a long season folks.

San Jose opened their season and got spanked by the team we are playing this afternoon. A team that was expected to be a lottery finalist in next summer’s draft!
Scotty Bowman said to me one time…well the truth is, I never talked to Scotty Bowman. I never liked Bowman. He tried to talk to me one time and I cut him dead.

I kid. I kid.

But Scotty Bowman did say, to someone other than me, that the talent level of 95% of the players in the NHL is fairly equal. What changes from game to game is motivation.

All the old stand-byes.

The truth is we just got out worked by Calgary until they had a comfortable league. And the Sutter family knows how to shut it down from there. The scribes can talk all they like about Kipper, but I said this before: Calgary trapped and collapsed for the final period and our real scoring chances were actually quite limited. Any hockey fan knows; shots alone are not a great measuring sick. It’s quality that counts.

So today we need to out hustle the Avs. And if we work harder than they do, we’ll win.

We are a better team. But hard work always beats talent. Against the Sharks the Avs were on an opening game high and the retirement of Burnaby Joe that night provided the inspiration that propelled them past the boys from SJ.

Our loss to the Flames should do the same for us.
The first period established a couple of things for me. One is that the Colorado Avalanche have a new team identity. Give credit to coach Joe Sacco. He has iced a scrappy team that checks all over the ice. They win the little battles and they have a fairly complete team with a scoring line, a hard nosed defense and a goaltender that plays big…much like a certain goalie playing for Vancouver.

Secondly, although I felt we carried much of the play, we looked tentative when the battle was truly engaged. And when you play tentative, you are thinking too much. Reacting instead of acting. There’s only one way out. Hard work. Calgary out-hustled us in game one and Colorado did much the same in the first period. The Sedin line was the only forward group that managed sustained pressure. We need that from everyone else.
Need to get the lunch pails out boys.

The second period was more of the same. The Sedins pressed offensively at times but the second and third lines looked shockingly ineffective. Our PK is put to the test as well because on a number of occasions, the Avs are beating us to loose pucks and we are reduced to clutching and grabbing…and in today’s NHL, that kind of flatfooted approach leads to the box. Stastny’s cute tip-in starts our guys squeezing their sticks and missing chances.

The third period becomes one of just looking for a break. And the penalty parade continues. Everyone knows that the breaks disappear when all you do is look for them.

The odious Darcy Tucker gets the backbreaker on yet another holding penalty by the Nucks.

These are the salad days for the negative crowd.

They’ll point out that the Sedins havn’t lead us out of the wilderness yet and now we are saddled with a bad contract for the next five years. But those types, as boastful as they will become, really know very little about hockey. Some others will pick on Luongo, who has not stolen a win while the team in front of him tries to find their game. Others will find a different whipping boy…from Bieksa to Kesler and then right through the line up. Still others will call for coach V’s head.

But it’s a team game folks and until this team fires on all cylinders we’ll be the ones looking like a June lottery team. We’ve been through losing streaks, both long and short, before. And if you believe, as I do, in the essential talent and character on this team, then you will believe that they will work their way out of this.

The key word is work.