(AP Photo/Tom Olmscheid)
After last night's performance, there is a mandatory 2-game reprieve before complaining that Theodore gets paid too much and doesn't steal enough games.
With a 38-save effort last night, you might as well start calling him Billy the Kid. Did Billy the Kid steal things? I know he was an outlaw and I assume outlaws steal things.
Anyways, if he keeps performing like this for the rest of the playoffs, it's a pretty safe bet that the Avalanche will try to re-sign him over the summer. But please, nothing crazy.
Overlapping double-headers saved my life
I was off at a fundraising event, one which actually had good food, so I had the ol' PVR set to tape the game. I expected to miss most of the first period due to the overlap with the Caps-Flyers game. What I did not expect was for that game to go into double-OT causing me to miss about 40 minutes of action.
From the sounds of it, the Jose Theodore show may have given me a stroke from too much excitement and fear so I'm not too broken up about it. But still, it's really annoying NHL so get your heads out of your butts and fix your scheduling.
Fast start staved off
The Wild came out guns blazing and fired off 32 shots in those first two periods. Theodore turned aside the first 16, then got beat on a cross-ice, no-chance play, then turned on the afterburners and shut the Wild down the rest of the way.
Take the old with the new
The Avalanche, after having Andrew Brunette open the scoring for the third straight game, got key contributions from a couple youngsters late in the third.
Wojtek Wolski buried his second of the playoffs off of a nice feed from John-Michael Liles. Then only 1:19 later, Paul Stastny found himself the recipient of some pretty passing from Peter Forsberg and Milan Hejduk. Stastny then pivoted to his backhand and fired it over a sprawling Nik Backstrom.
The biggest I've ever seen
Theodore called that goal "the biggest of the playoffs" and I can't say I disagree. "Why?", you might ask. Well, with just 3 seconds remaining in the game, Brian Rolston's mission to shoot, shoot, shoot and shoot some more finally paid off.
Right off the faceoff Rolston found the puck heading towards his stick so he wound up and blasted it through Theodore's legs. After putting up 7 shots alone, you almost felt like Rolston deserved to get something for his efforts. Almost.
Powered up powerplay
The Avalanche were 2-for-3 on the powerplay tonight and that was definitely a key difference. The Wild had the same amount of chances with a bit more time but could only solve Theodore the one time.
Hopefully this is a turning point for the powerplay but given its inconsistencies all season, I'm not holding my breath. And really, holding your breath is a bad idea in general.
Boogeyman, Lappy and the Wild fans
No, Lappy didn't drop the gloves with the "Boogeyman" tonight. However he did collide with him hard and ended up taking the less-good end of it. The good news is that Lappy got up and was fine. Even better news was that he managed to knock Boogard off his feet at least.
The bad news? The Wild fans actually booed when Laperriere got up after being down and attended to by the trainers. Jib said it best when noting that as much as he - and all of us - hate Dion Phaneuf, I don't know of anyone who would cheer him actually being injured and boo when he appeared to be fine.
I don't want to pigeonhole an entire state since, again as Jib pointed out, the Wild bloggers are a classy group but that was just a shameful display by Wild fans.
Game five statistics
No, I'm not going to break down some of the in-game stats today. I have to be getting to work so I can leave a bit earlier than usual to enjoy this glorious day. However, in case anybody did not hear during the broadcast - and it was repeated about 1,000 times on TSN - the winner of game 5 in a tied series has gone on to win the series 80% of the time.
The Wild might as well hand over the series. Heck, Gary might as well just hand the Avalanche the Cup, right? Right?
Next game
The game time for game 6 has been announced. It will be Saturday at 10:00pm EDT, 8:00pm MT. The game will be national on CBC in Canada and Versus in the States. CBC has game 6 of the Montreal-Boston series before this one but there is a 3-hour gap which should be enough to let us Canadians watch the whole game. You Americans get off lucky as Versus isn't covering the Habs-Bruins game.
Game highlights
Related Links
NHL.com Event Summary
ColoradoAvalanche.com Recap
In the Cheap Seats Recap
Theodore's effort nets series lead
Theodore steals show, win for Avs
Theodore was astonishing, mythical (whoa, hyperbole much?)
Do good things...
Wolski has grown up
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7 Comments:
hey buddy!!
I am a french fan of your blog, and I would like to thank you so much for the entertainment I have every day when I read your website. Simply the best!
Go Avs for ever!!!
Way to Stanley!!
C ya
RV
Great job as always Shane. I know you missed some of it it, but take everyone's word when they say Theodore was amazing.
And the more Wild fans open their mouths the worse they look. I've definitely lost some respect for fans that I thought had a true clue about the game. Cheering when Lappy's down and booing him when he got up is definitely a step too far. As much as I dislike the way Phaneuf or Bertuzzi or (insert douchebag's name here) play the game from time to time, I would never cheer if they got hurt. I'm a bigger fan of people and their families than I am a hater of hockey players that act like jerks every once in a while on the ice. Things seemed to change for good after the Steve Moore incident. The Canuck fans cheered that for a while until they realized things were pretty serious. I remember a sign fans were holding the next Avs visit to Vancouver that was apologizing to Steve Moore for cheering when he got hurt. I want no part of feeling that way. Would I feel better about one of the key players from an opposing team being hurt and out of a series so my team had a better chance of winning? Absolutely. Would I cheer when they got hurt? No chance.
Keep up the great work and talk to you again soon, Jay
way to cheer them on, I stayed up late after I got into Denver to watch the game (had a family member DVR it)
I can't wait for tomorrow night.
oh and GO STATSNY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
"I'm a bigger fan of people and their families"
Cheers to that, Jay.
jed, Staz couldn't have looked any happier/relieved after scoring that goal!
Here's to him scoring a couple thanks to you wearing his jersey tomorrow ;)
So tomorrow's a Stastny day? I'll wear mine to the game too! Let's go Avs!
You all suck :)
don't worry Shane, I will take some pictures for ya :)
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