October Brings Long Awaited Revival to the Revamped Avalanche
Artwork by Rebecca Holt
October – in recent years known as Rocktober – has now taken its turn as Avstober, bringing down such stellar opponents as the Red Wings, the Canucks, the Sharks, and the Flames; something most of us honestly thought would not happen for at least a few more seasons.
The Avs last in the Western conference last season, are rebounding back strong this season to lead the league in points at the end of October, tied only with the star-studded Pittsburgh Penguins. The surprise here is that they have done all of this under the leadership of a new-old veteran captain, Adam Foote, who was welcomed to the Captain’s chair so-to-speak, replacing long time favorite, Joe Sakic.
Foote has helped the team toward posting the greatest start to a season since the 2000-2001 Stanley Cup Avalanche team. Headed by of course, Sakic, Forsberg, and the all-important Roy. The team today seems to be finding themselves in a similar pattern with Wojtek Wolski, Paul Stastny, and Milan Hejduk starting off relatively strong. Not forgetting, of course, the rookies, Ryan O’Reilly and Matt Duchene, who have provided the youthful energy expected of them thus far. Let it also be noted that these two are the first 18-year olds to ever suit up and play for the Avalanche.
Yet, even bigger news comes with Craig Anderson, the so-far stellar goaltender, achieving first star honors for the month of October overall. “Anderson has played amazing and he’s deserved to get all the starts he has — and we’ve been winning games, so it’s all good,” Last year’s starting goalie, Budaj told the Denver Post. “I just want to be able to contribute to the team any way I can and hopefully I can get some wins.” And we are all hoping he does just that, win. Building off of Anderson’s play, after a record-setting career performance in October. That also tied him for the team wins in a month record with, Budaj (March 2007) and Dan Bouchard (February 1981).
Just a week into the hopeful best second-month of the Avalanche’s record-breaking season, they face a loss to the so far shoddy at best, Edmonton Oilers. The loss, coming at home, broke the Avalanche’s intimidating undefeated home record, the last team to stand so in the entire league. Though the loss is but a small bump in the entire span of the season, it was still very disappointing.
Heading in to the game, the Avs boasted an 86.1% penalty kill success rate, the second best mark in the league. It seemed as though the Avalanche penalty kill decided to head to Disneyland early as the Oilers went 4-for-7 on scoring for their power-play opportunities. As shameful as it looked on the ice, it looked even worse on paper, as it dropped the Avalanche 7 whole spots in the penalty kill percentage team standings. And it was not as if the Avalanche did not have their chances to recover their losses. They also went 0-for-4 on their power play chances and are performing at a 1-for-25 rate in only their last eight games. This stellar mark posts them at 16th in the league at power play percentage with a 19.4 %, trailing the mediocre Detroit rival by a whole 0.6 %.
If there is one thing I can take out of this loss, it is only a hope…a hope that this does not reflect on any post-season mishaps that will be occurring in our beloved Avalanche team’s future. Lastly, but as always very far from the least, the Avalanche keep rolling, and headed into their third match-up against Chicago this past Wednesday looking to add to their stellar start. And even with playmakers like Milan Hejduk, Darcy Tucker, and Tom Preissing looking to have made a strong return for the match-up, the Avs did not play so strongly as they have so far. Through a hard-fought struggle though, the Avs lost to the Blackhawks in the third period, 3 – 2. Yes it is only November, but it is never too early for a home team fan like myself to start rooting for the boys to bring back another Cup. Keep it up team, and Colorado will have only one more thing to brag
