Scaaary Weekend For Avalanche

The Colorado Avalanche need some of their slumping players to start contributing. We're looking at you, Marek Svatos. (0 points in the last 9 games)

The Colorado Avalanche picked the perfect costume for Halloween last weekend. They dressed up as the team everyone thought they’d be this season. They were disorganized, lackadaisical, and frighteningly inept on offense, scoring just one goal while getting beat by a surging San Jose team and a Luongo-less Vancouver squad.

The Avs were beaten handily by the Sharks, losing 1-3 while being out-shot 46-25. Matt Duchene scored the lone goal for the Avs, a nice effort on his part, scoring off his own rebound while Colorado was short-handed.  The loss prevented the Avalanche from breaking the NHL record for most points in October.

While the Avs were handed a tough loss on Halloween Eve, nothing could have prepared them for what was coming on Sunday.

With Roberto Luongo out for a while with an injury, the Canucks had to decide which goalie they were going to start: the prospect or the project. Vancouver went with the project, and started Andrew Raycroft, the other half of our disastrous goalie-tandem last year. Raycroft started last season strong. At one point he had a 9-1 record. However, when the injuries started piling on and the rookies started getting called up, Rayzor proved he couldn’t carry the team, going 3-15 in his last 18 starts. Add to that the fact that the Avalanche shut down the Canucks 3-0 last month, many Avs fans were feeling especially confident going into this game.

The treat turned out to be nothing but a dirty trick.

The Avalanche kept on their “Bad Team” costumes and Raycroft, carried by a candy-fueled sugar rush, stopped everything our players could throw at him, finishing with 18 saves in a 3-0 beat down.

The Colorado Avalanche has plenty of excuses to fall back on. They have already been ravaged by early season injuries to key role players. On top of that, 15 games into the 2009-10 season, the Avs have played a total of four games at home. Even for as young a team as this, all that traveling is going to wear you down. Yes, the Avs have all the excuses in the world – I just hope Joe Sacco doesn’t let his team use these excuses like a crutch (we’ve got enough guys using those as it is). They need to find that fire again, that drive that has led them to such an impressive start. They cannot sit back and watch their division lead slip away.

The good news is, Colorado plays on Wednesday against perhaps an even more surprising team – The Phoenix Coyotes. This will also put my two favorite goalies on the ice at the same time – Craig Anderson (assuming Peter Budaj doesn’t make his season debut) and Ilya “Why You Have To Be Mad” Bryzgalov.

What’s especially interesting about this match-up of goalies is that Anderson and Bryzgalov have been selected the 1st and 3rd stars of the month of October, respectfully. As I’ve been trying to convey all along, I haven’t seen this kind of goaltending for my team since Patrick Roy, and Anderson is certainly getting noticed. Congratulations Andy!

EDIT: Barring an act of God, Peter Budaj WILL be officially making his season debut Wednesday night.