Ducks Waddle Away With 2-1 OT Win

The Avalanche nearly came away with their 4th straight win and all credit for that can be given to Peter Budaj. He had his 4th solid outing in a row and appears to have shaken his early funk and grabbed the #1 goaltender reigns for the Avalanche.

The Avalanche opened the scoring midway through the second as Ian Laperriere and Cody McCormick put on a spot-on impression of Paul Stastny and Milan Hejduk. Laperriere took the puck behind the net, waited for everyone to look at him, then fed a wide open Cody McCormick who had nothing but net to shoot at.

The Ducks then poured it on hard in the third looking to tie it up and they got their wish early. Peter Budaj kicked out a rebound but he didn't kick it far enough and Chris Pronger was there with his insanely long stick to poke it home. The length of the stick may or may not be compensating for something.

Budaj was able to keep holding the fort to get the game to OT but the Ducks were able to end it off a 2-on-1 and a great shot from Mathieu Schneider. The Avs took a gamble one way and gave up the odd-man rush. But that's what happens in OT so you can't blame them for the gamble.

You can blame them for mustering only 12 shots on goal against a backup who hasn't put up great stats in his limited playing time this year. You could blame them for chipping the puck out of the zone and then turning around waiting to defend. They almost seemed mesmerized that they finally figured out how to get the puck out of the zone and had no idea how to play inside the neutral zone.

It looks like the Ducks might be starting to shake off their post-Stanley Cup blues but they've got to be worried about their offense which still ranks just 27th in the league.

The only consoling factor you could use is that the Avalanche are pretty banged up. There are 2 D-men out (Sauer and Leopold), 3 centers (Sakic, Richardson, Arnason) and a left-winger (Smyth). Those are all players with solid regular minutes that had to be picked up by the rest of the guys. Heck, even Parker had over 6 minutes in ice-time tonight.

In a game where the Avs were outshot 38-12 and walked away with a 2-1 OT loss, you'd be hardpressed to not award the first star to whoever was in net for the Avalanche. Not so says the folks over at Anaheim. They awarded the first star to Ryan Getzlaf who had a ton of ice-time on the Ducks top line but only managed to record one shot on goal and no points. I can't be any more confused at that choice.

Standard operating procedure for the Avalanche after a loss is to switch goaltenders but I'm going to stay optimistic and say that Budaj will be in net Friday against the Rangers. How can you not reward your goaltender after hitching the team to his back and getting an undeserved point?

A point that brings them back atop the NW division. Sure, there's a couple other teams there but it still counts.

Related Links
NHL.com Event Summary
ColoradoAvalanche.com Recap
TSN Recap
In the Cheap Seats Recap
Denver Post Recap
Sports Illustrated Recap