Tonight was not a good game by the Avs tonight. At all. MacK was very good I thought...Rants was poor, Barrie's not generating what he usually does offensively, Varly let in a huge softie he should have had, and the bottom nine...well, what can I say. It's basically just one big fourth line.
I know there's three injuries, but they aren't to any of the star players, and injuries are inevitable in this league. Dano, Bourque, Nieto, Wilson, Dries, and Calvert forming the winger corps for three Avs lines tonight is nothing short of a joke for a club which made the playoffs last season. Being forced to ice that group of nearly talentless players with just a couple injuries to players who currently aren't all that spectacular themselves is a problem that falls squarely on the head of Sakic IMO. That's inexcusable. A projected bottom feeder should be embarrassed to ice that. They sometimes opportunistically pop one in but there's more to the game than that -- they don't drive play, they can never be relied on to score, nobody aside from the top line can be looked towards to score, and it makes matchups against the Avs a piece of cake for the opposition. Just worry about the top line and who cares if your own fourth line or bottom pair gets stuck out there -- they'll be playing against one of the Avs' three fourth lines.
But even despite the fact they probably deserved to lose tonight I have an incredibly bitter taste in my mouth. The offside rule either needs to go or needs to be heavily modified (e.g. time limit of <5 seconds between the puck entering the zone and the puck going into the net or the play isn't reviewable. The league claims to want more goals, yet they're actively taking away goals everybody 5 years ago happily celebrated with zero complaints.
