The Avalanche and Flames, who met in Colorado’s home opener Monday night at the Pepsi Center, might even get sick of each other – and that’s the point.
One of the innovations of the relaunched NHL is a reconfigured schedule, with teams playing eight games against their divisional rivals, an increase over the six intradivisional games in the 2003-04 season.
Out here, in the part of North America where staying within the division still involves long plane flights rather than bus rides, there at least seems to be the potential for better rivalries in the Northwest Division. And not just in the traditional Battle of Alberta – Edmonton vs. Calgary – or the recently notorious Colorado vs. Vancouver.
The Avalanche’s 7-3 rout of the Flames, who played Sunday at Detroit, was the sort of out-of-hand game in which Calgary coach Darryl Sutter’s teams in the past often resorted to “message sending” in the third period. It’s old-school hockey, the product of short-term frustration and a belief that if you’re going to lose big, you might as well not lose quietly.
In this case, the phenomenon – certainly not isolated to Sutter’s Flames – was a factor in the NHL coming up with one of the new rules for 2005-06. An instigator penalty in the last five minutes of a game comes with a game misconduct and a one-game suspension, for the first offense, and the player’s coach is fined $10,000. The coach’s fine doubles each time it happens.
That’s an expensive message, if delivered in the last five minutes.
On Monday night, the game seemed on the verge of boiling over, but never quite did. With the Avalanche leading 6-1 as the second period ended, Calgary winger Darren McCarty – yes, that Darren McCarty – drew a major for boarding Avalanche defenseman Patrice Brisebois, plus a game misconduct.
“Every time you expect to get hit, and that’s part of the game,” Brisebois said. “I just tried to lug the puck to the board, and I knew he was coming, but I didn’t expect he would drive an elbow right to my face.
“But sometimes when you’re behind a few goals, you try to generate something on the ice, but I don’t think that was good for them. It gave us a pretty good power play.”
Though former Avalanche Chris Simon bumped Alex Tanguay well after a whistle and was sent off for boarding midway through the third, it never got out of hand.
“When it’s 7-1, you have to look over your shoulder,” said Avalanche winger Ian Laperriere, rarely known to turn the other cheek. “You don’t want to get into a fight because you don’t want to change anything. You don’t want to turn the game around. You never know. You take one fight, one good punch, and they’re coming. That’s Darryl Sutter’s team, and it’s been like that for years, and it won’t change this year because there’s new rules.”
Veteran winger Steve Konowalchuk said: “It’s going to heat up. The next game (Nov. 12), they’re going to be hungrier when we play them, and we have to be ready for that. When you play eight times, you’re going to know everybody pretty good.”
Terry Frei can be reached at 303-820-1895 or tfrei@denverpost.com.
