The Good, the Bad and the Ugly from the past week with the Colorado Avalanche

THE GOOD

1. The Colorado Avalanche sit among the NHL point leaders, ranking sixth with 202 points so far this season.

2. Matt Duchene launched into December with the vigor he showed last month by scoring two goals in three games. And, as everyone already knows, the NHL named him as the third star of the month for November. Currently, Duchene ranks fourth among NHL scoring leaders with fourteen goals.

3. In their last four games, the Avalanche have only surrendered one goal in 10 penalty kills.

4. Semyon Varlamov showed flashes of finding his form early in the week and defended the net well against the Minnesota Wild. He managed 41 saves on 43 shots Saturday, for a .953 save percent. Hopefully, his improved play signals new found confidence and will carry over into the rest of the season.

5. Chris Wagner and Jack Skille showed both heart and skill this past week, making shots and creating scoring chances. Their play was reminiscent of the original fourth line at the start of the season as Wagner racked up another goal and Skille added two assists. The Avalanche need scoring from all four lines if they hope to create a winning streak. It looks like this line combination got the memo.

6. Carl Soderberg showed hustle fighting for puck possession and getting scrappy in the neutral zone. He has created great scoring chances and consistently played quality defense, while adding three more assists to his record. While his plus/minus statistics don’t always reflect his impact, his line has consistently run against the opponent’s top scorers and been effective. If you want to know more, Patrick Roy commented on Soderberg’s value to the team during his weekly interview on 104.3 The Fan this past Wednesday. You can find a summary of his comments in last week’s Roy Report.

7. The Avalanche won two consecutive road games. They also scored twice in the second period of both the Devils and the New York Rangers games. The Avs then maintained their lead through the third period to finish with wins. Yay – the curse is lifted! Third period leads CAN be protected. Now they need to string together some wins and get on a winning streak.

8. Blake Comeau demonstrated how to get into an opponent’s head with his play against New Jersey’s Damon Severson and even managed to get into a bit of a tussle.

9. In the game against the Rangers, Brandon Gormley played a shift without a helmet after it got knocked off, exhibiting the kind of toughness one expects from a quality defenseman.

THE BAD

1. The Saturday night Minnesota Wild game proved one of the more disheartening losses of the season. After the second period, Altitude analyst Mark Rycroft outlined seven different mistakes by various members of the team during the same possession around their own net that led to Minnesota’s first goal. The team couldn’t pass to save their lives and they showed a complete inability to clear the puck out of their defensive zone. Hopefully it was just one bad game and the Avalanche figure out how to beat the Wild on Monday night. Maybe it’s just the rose colored glasses getting in the way.

2. Forward Cody McLeod sports a league-leading seven fighting majors and ranks third with 77 actual penalty minutes. While there’s value in physical play, one has to wonder if a team wrestling to climb the standings would be better served having fewer penalties to kill.

3. Failing to capitalize on the power play for four straight games after having a five game scoring streak on the man advantage raises concerns. Perhaps it’s time to consider mixing up the power play units.

THE UGLY

1.The facial hair grown in honor of Mo-vember. Please shave it off, shave it all off. And coach, you should consider letting the beard go as well. Although, the trim is definitely an improvement.

2. Rick Nash’s skate to the head of Erik Johnson in the Rangers game was ugly. One feared the worst as blood poured out his mouth and watched his helmet nearly knocked off in the replays. The team needs Eric Johnson. He is a core player. Which begs the question – is there an extra ‘A’ floating around anywhere to add to his jersey?

3. Nathan MacKinnon appeared injured after blocking a shot near the end of the third period against the Rangers. As he limped off the ice, it looked like shades of last March. Gotta’ love his grit for getting into the defensive zone and sacrificing his body, but having Mr. Mac out for anything more than a couple of games seriously jeopardizes the team’s chances for moving up in the standings. Thankfully, he returned for the following game, but the image of him limping off the ice was UGLY.

WHAT TO WATCH

1.The Jarome Iginla vigil continues as everyone looks for him to reach the 600 goal milestone soon (he racked up his 597th goal this past week). Can he reach the landmark number before the new year?

2. Check out the 20th Anniversary team as they are honored at the Avs home game against the Minnesota Wild tonight.

WHAT THE HECK?

In honor of the inconsistent NHL officiating, there is a special addendum to TGBU.

First, a disclaimer. Writing anything remotely positive about the Detroit Red Wings is tantamount to heresy, in my humble opinion. So take that into consideration when reading the addendum

If anyone watched highlights from the Red wings game against the Arizona Coyotes Thursday night, they would have seen Klas Dahlbeck of the Coyotes launch his shoulder into the head of Detroit’s Drew Miller, after Miller had already dumped the puck, which was easily twenty feet away at the time of the hit. The NHL Tonight crew called it a clean hit and no call was made, even though Miller collapsed on the ice and needed help to leave, obviously injured. Later it was revealed he suffered a broken jaw.

So HOW THE HECK did Gabriel Landeskog receive a two game suspension on his hit, which was a bang bang play and resulted in no injuries while Dahlbeck didn’t even receive a fine? The Avalanche took the suspension with class, not challenging the questionable ruling on a player with no history of cheap shots, attempting to honor the NHL’s efforts to minimize head injuries. Yet, when a player is too wobbly to skate off the ice on his own due to an off the puck hit to the head, there is neither a penalty nor a suspension. WHAT THE HECK?

If the NHL is truly serious about limiting injuries and minimizing head trauma, the officiating needs to be consistent. Otherwise, it just looks like a replay of all the hand wringing over the Steve Moore incident yet, much ado about nothing.

You can view the hit in question below.