awefullspellare
12-13-2002, 11:52 PM
Waiting line starts here
Avs need to get busy rolling
By Terry Frei
Denver Post Sports Writer
Friday, December 13, 2002 - Know the feeling you have when you're waiting for someone to pull in the driveway and pick you up? It could be a prearranged lift to the airport, or a group venture to a hockey game, or a carpool ride to work.
You're ready at the appointed time.
When your ride isn't there five minutes later? No big deal.
Ten minutes later? You start to wonder.
Fifteen minutes later? You're mad as a winger who just got a face wash.
Twenty minutes later? That's it. You give up and decide you've been foolish for not doing it sooner.
That's how it is with the Avalanche this season: Those of us who assumed the Avs were about to show up ... eventually ... sometime ... while we're young, guys ... are starting to wonder.
All of this illustrates how fine the lines can be - and we're not speaking of red and blue lines. This desultory start is far from unprecedented: In the quirky reckoning that is the NHL standings of this era, the Avs go into tonight's game at Edmonton with one more regulation victory than regulation loss. They're 9-8-8-3.
In Bob Hartley's first two seasons behind the Colorado bench, the Avs were 13-12-3 at this point of the season. After the introduction of the guaranteed point for overtime, the Avs were 20-5-3-0 two seasons ago, when they went on to win the Stanley Cup, 14-12-2-0 last season.
The Avs haven't gotten the big goals, including the ones that come at the end of regulation to forestall overtime. (The kicker is Patrick Roy also hasn't been larcenous often enough to turn a tie into a victory.) The Avs have won only once in overtime, when the 4-on-4 and the further opening up of the ice should reward "skilled" teams, right? They have settled for ties eight times and lost three times in overtime.
The dearth of game-turning, or even game-ending, goals is the biggest reason ... we're ... still ... waiting.
The other flare of alarm in all of this is Derek Morris increasingly has appeared to be exactly what the Avalanche had hoped - a good, young defenseman with a tremendous upside. And yet this is a team that still seems to have a chemistry problem, as if the trade - particularly because of Chris Drury's departure - involved just a little too much tinkering by general manager Pierre Lacroix.
So it isn't Morris' fault - or the fault of either Dean McAmmond, who appears capable of playing capably on the top two lines, or Jeff Shantz - that the October trade is in danger of going down as that rare deal that hurt both teams. Drury and Jarome Iginla need too much help at Calgary.
Meanwhile, the void Drury left at Colorado is in danger of being cavernous - if the Avalanche's inability to score clutch goals continues into the playoffs. (If they make the playoffs.) Yes, the Colorado special teams have been mystifyingly awful, and such elite players as Roy and Rob Blake generally haven't played up to expectations. But it's still inevitable that at least the power play will get in sync. The penalty-killing approach still too often is maddeningly passive, but why is that a news flash? The Avalanche always has played that way under Hartley. And when Roy is at the top of his game, it sure works a lot better than it has this season.
The season barely is one-third over. There are alarms sounding, but overreacting to this Colorado start would be silly. Fire Hartley? That would be ridiculous under most sensible standards, but hockey doesn't operate sensibly.
NHL conventional wisdom is that every head coach reaches a point where his message is treated as if he's trying to deliver it via a cellphone that has only one of those eight little squiggly signal-strength indicator lines showing on the screen. The wisdom is so conventional, in fact, it can become a self-fulfilling prophecy.
But Hartley is safe for the foreseeable future. And he should be, given his work during the past 50 months. He hasn't been perfect, and he has helped destroy Alex Tanguay's confidence with some clumsy handling of the young winger. His attempt to balance the lines at the start of the season was a reasonable experiment, until it included such details as Steve Brule and Serge Aubin on the top two lines.
He isn't beloved by his players, but those who consider that a shock or an indictable offense are naive about the politics of professional sport.
Bottom line: Uh ... has anyone seen my ride? I'm still waiting. For a few more minutes, at least.
Avs need to get busy rolling
By Terry Frei
Denver Post Sports Writer
Friday, December 13, 2002 - Know the feeling you have when you're waiting for someone to pull in the driveway and pick you up? It could be a prearranged lift to the airport, or a group venture to a hockey game, or a carpool ride to work.
You're ready at the appointed time.
When your ride isn't there five minutes later? No big deal.
Ten minutes later? You start to wonder.
Fifteen minutes later? You're mad as a winger who just got a face wash.
Twenty minutes later? That's it. You give up and decide you've been foolish for not doing it sooner.
That's how it is with the Avalanche this season: Those of us who assumed the Avs were about to show up ... eventually ... sometime ... while we're young, guys ... are starting to wonder.
All of this illustrates how fine the lines can be - and we're not speaking of red and blue lines. This desultory start is far from unprecedented: In the quirky reckoning that is the NHL standings of this era, the Avs go into tonight's game at Edmonton with one more regulation victory than regulation loss. They're 9-8-8-3.
In Bob Hartley's first two seasons behind the Colorado bench, the Avs were 13-12-3 at this point of the season. After the introduction of the guaranteed point for overtime, the Avs were 20-5-3-0 two seasons ago, when they went on to win the Stanley Cup, 14-12-2-0 last season.
The Avs haven't gotten the big goals, including the ones that come at the end of regulation to forestall overtime. (The kicker is Patrick Roy also hasn't been larcenous often enough to turn a tie into a victory.) The Avs have won only once in overtime, when the 4-on-4 and the further opening up of the ice should reward "skilled" teams, right? They have settled for ties eight times and lost three times in overtime.
The dearth of game-turning, or even game-ending, goals is the biggest reason ... we're ... still ... waiting.
The other flare of alarm in all of this is Derek Morris increasingly has appeared to be exactly what the Avalanche had hoped - a good, young defenseman with a tremendous upside. And yet this is a team that still seems to have a chemistry problem, as if the trade - particularly because of Chris Drury's departure - involved just a little too much tinkering by general manager Pierre Lacroix.
So it isn't Morris' fault - or the fault of either Dean McAmmond, who appears capable of playing capably on the top two lines, or Jeff Shantz - that the October trade is in danger of going down as that rare deal that hurt both teams. Drury and Jarome Iginla need too much help at Calgary.
Meanwhile, the void Drury left at Colorado is in danger of being cavernous - if the Avalanche's inability to score clutch goals continues into the playoffs. (If they make the playoffs.) Yes, the Colorado special teams have been mystifyingly awful, and such elite players as Roy and Rob Blake generally haven't played up to expectations. But it's still inevitable that at least the power play will get in sync. The penalty-killing approach still too often is maddeningly passive, but why is that a news flash? The Avalanche always has played that way under Hartley. And when Roy is at the top of his game, it sure works a lot better than it has this season.
The season barely is one-third over. There are alarms sounding, but overreacting to this Colorado start would be silly. Fire Hartley? That would be ridiculous under most sensible standards, but hockey doesn't operate sensibly.
NHL conventional wisdom is that every head coach reaches a point where his message is treated as if he's trying to deliver it via a cellphone that has only one of those eight little squiggly signal-strength indicator lines showing on the screen. The wisdom is so conventional, in fact, it can become a self-fulfilling prophecy.
But Hartley is safe for the foreseeable future. And he should be, given his work during the past 50 months. He hasn't been perfect, and he has helped destroy Alex Tanguay's confidence with some clumsy handling of the young winger. His attempt to balance the lines at the start of the season was a reasonable experiment, until it included such details as Steve Brule and Serge Aubin on the top two lines.
He isn't beloved by his players, but those who consider that a shock or an indictable offense are naive about the politics of professional sport.
Bottom line: Uh ... has anyone seen my ride? I'm still waiting. For a few more minutes, at least.