Colorado Avalanche: The Dallas Stars Come to Town

By Ross Sellers | Oct 10, 2015

The Colorado Avalanche play against the Dallas Stars tonight, and there probably won’t be a lack of scoring. Thursday’s game was a heartbreaker, and I was nervous that might happen after I got off the plane listening to “Heartache Tonight” by the Eagles. I’m a superstitious cat, and Thursday’s game was the definition of heartache.

But, isn’t there some motto for the Avalanche? Even keel, even keel. So yeah, let’s move on from that disaster.

Tonight the Stars come to town, and they sport a star-studded roster that got even better during the offseason.

Notable additions:

LW Patrick Sharp

D Johnny Oduya-think-so

G Antti Niemi

Well, they traded some of their D to get Patrick Sharp, but added Oduya-want-to in order to bolster what they lost. Their offense was already deadly last season, and adding Sharp is not going to make it worse.

The Colorado Avalanche scored 4 goals in Thursday’s game, but gave up 5. The Stars are coming off a 3-0 shutout against the Penguins which is pretty impressive considering the upgraded talent (Phil Kessel) in Pittsburgh. So, maybe the Stars are taking the kiddie gloves off this year, and the Avalanche need to be prepared.

During Thursday’s game my buddy kept remarking about consistency, citing the Blackhawks game against the Rangers as his source. He noted that even though the Blackhawks were down the entire game, they kept pushing and playing the same style of game throughout. That’s what consistency is, a relentless dedication to a certain mode of being with no deviation.

I loved the play of the Colorado Avalanche through the first 40 minutes –they were brutalizing their opponent in dominating fashion. But something changed in the third, and they lost their game. To win in this league, consistency must be employed to tedious fashion, all the details must be addressed with precision.

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So, tonight Patrick Roy has got to be stressing consistency for his boys; likewise, the boys are sure to focus on playing a complete game.

The lineup for tonight has not been released at the time of writing this, but I imagine we can expect Antti Niemi in net after a shutout, and Semyon Varlamov in net after a questionable end to Thursday night’s game, which he’ll want to fix.

Furthermore, I’m really hoping that the Colorado Avalanche get Nick Holden out of the lineup, but I truly don’t know who should take his place. I think a pairing of Nikita Zadorov and Brad Stuart would be much better. Once again, defense is an issue for the Colorado Avalanche, and we may not see a remedy to this issue until next season.

Also, Thursday’s 3rd line was atrocious, and I’m not surprised. When you start a line that has two wingers with a grand total of 13 NHL games played between the two of them (Mikko Rantanen and Borna Rendulic), and a center who’s only played in two full NHL seasons (Carl Soderberg), it’s likely that there will be a lack of chemistry. They continually got hemmed in their own zone, and Soderberg had an awful face-off percentage of 20% (no wonder Nathan MacKinnon is the second line center).

Something has to be done about that line, and it might come in the form of Mikhail Grigorenko. Although, he also sports little NHL experience, and what appears to be a less than desirable work ethic. I’d sure love to hear Patrick Roy comment on Grigorenko being the extra forward.

It remains to be seen whether or not the Colorado Avalanche sport enough depth to attempt 3 scoring lines. Blake Comeau didn’t look out of place on the first line, but he’d be much better suited to a third line role. In fact, with him and Rants on Soderberg’s wing, we might actually have a productive third line.

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However, the fourth line looked great, their tenacity was vicious, and they continually brought energy to the team by spending a good number of minutes grinding the Minnesota Wild to pulp in their own zone.

So in lieu of these developments, tonight’s game is going to be fun to watch. It’s going to be played in the Pepsi Center again, and hopefully it’s sold out again because it was jumping on Thursday.

Side note: Why were there pom-poms? This is not the playoffs. Also, why were the segregated, white pom-poms for the upper level seats, and blue shakers for the bottom section?

Anyway, it’s game night for the Colorado Avalanche, and they have a deadly opponent coming to town. What can we expect? The Colorado Avalanche should not struggle for goals, and I doubt the Stars will either. It should be a high-scoring affair, and of course we hope to see the Avalanche on top after the bout.

Varly needs a bounce-back game, and the boys need to play with consistency because the lack of it brought the loss on Thursday. They’ll have a tough opponent tonight in the Stars, and they need to win because it’s a division game and starting 0-2 in the division is no-good.

Let’s go Colorado Avalanche!

What do you think about Thursday’s game? How will the Colorado Avalanche play tonight? Let us know in the comments!

Next: 7 Takeaways From Thursday Night's Game

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