Just aThought...

Most of what you are saying makes sense.  What I saw when I was able to watch the series is that the Avs were giving up far too many odd man rushes.  Especially shortly after giving up a goal.  I may not know a ton about hockey, but I do know that if you are giving up a lot of 2 on 1 or 3 on 2 breakaways, that you are going to be giving up some goals.  I watched most of the games at Buffalo Wild Wings and I lost track of how many times someone said they thought that the new goal scored by the Wings was a replay.

Hopefully the Avs can make some changes during the offseason to improve our chances of winning the Cup next year.

All those 2 on 1 were caused by a defensemen trying to pinch and keep the puck in the offensive zone. but the forwards have to get back and clear rebounds or pick up trailers. Dirtroit didn't help us out and miss the net or anything either.

The best point you make is about how physically we play in general.  In the playoffs especially the hits really do play a big part of how the game ends up.  The only guys out there looking to make the big hits were the fringe guys.  I saw one good open ice check by Finger.  Footer and Salei were grinding even Liles tried to get nasty.  Sauer is our biggest Dman and I saw no grittiness from him.  Leopold, Hannan? MIA  JM has great scoring potential especially when he had someone like Blake watching his back.  With that void you can't expect any defenseman to drop deep into the zone on a regular basis.  I've been there and I can tell you I caught alot of heat for leaving my partner by himself even when I was scoring goals.  We need a couple of big and mean defensemen.  Scott Parker can fight but he needs to hit and produce like Dallas' Steve Ott-even though I think Ott is a real cheap SOB lol-or Boogard.  I am very proud of the fact that our AVS play with the amount of class they do but I feel that alot more grittiness and more guys with the talent to give the big hits is what it will take to get us deeper into the playoffs.  I watched last night as Morrow gave the best hit of the playoffs this season and then scored the winning goal in OT.  That is what I am talking about.  I am not ashamed to be an AVS fan never and will be.

GO AVS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Come Back JOE

This is just my opinion, but I think most of The Avs fans are going a bit overboard after we got dusted by the Wings.  I truly believe that Detroit merely dominated our JV team.

In the first round, the Avs were as healthy as they had been all year (even without Svatos and Clark) and were able to eliminate a tough, bruising, and solid Wild team in six games.  The Wild were the division champs and are a very disciplined team that makes life difficult for anyone they play.  Going into the Wings series, we all knew that as good as Minnesota was, Detroit was substantially better. 

Then the bd news started even before the series began.  No Forsberg in games 1 and 2 and Theodore was too sick to be effective and was pulled from game one.  After being down 2-0 in the series we were heading home and looking to get healthy and get back into the series.  Forsberg plays in game three and Theodore looks more like the guy that helped the Avs into the playoffs, but Stastny, Smyth, Hannon, etc get injured and we lose game threee by a goal.  By game four it was a foregone conclusion that The Red Wings would be in the conference finals and all of us fans were left to wonder what kind of a series it could have been.

I hate Detroit as much as the next guy, but they were a better team this season, and a far superior team to the group that was available to Quennville during the series.

Here's hoping that next year ends better than this year.   GO AVS