St. Louis – The players said it was the worst ice they’ve ever seen. If the ice could talk, it might have said, “You guys weren’t much to look at, either.”
Whatever was to blame, Tuesday night’s game between the Avalanche and St. Louis Blues made for a bad choice as OLN’s NHL game of the night. Both teams fumbled, stumbled and bumbled their way through three periods, overtime and a shootout, with the Avs finally winning 2-1.
Milan Hejduk’s goal stood up as the only one of the shootout, after Avs captain Joe Sakic got the team even 1-1 by scoring with five minutes, 28 seconds left in regulation.
“It wasn’t the prettiest of games from an entertainment (standpoint),” said Avs coach Joel Quenneville, who coached his first game back in St. Louis after being dismissed as Blues coach two years ago. “The chances were so low. There was a lot of tightness to the game. But you’re down 1-0 late in the third, you feel fortunate getting the equalizer and you feel even better getting the shootout.”
Starting with the morning skate, Avs players griped about the quality of the new ice sheet laid at the Savvis Center during the Olympic break.
“You might as well just put a tennis ball out there for all the bouncing around the puck does on it,” Avs left wing Alex Tanguay said after the skate.
The game had a tennis feel to it, with each team trading nonscoring forays into the other’s zone throughout. St. Louis outshot Colorado 24-23 and Blues defenseman Christian Backman scored at 4:44 of the third. After a few close chances, Sakic finally solved St. Louis goalie Curtis Sanford with a tough rebound putback of a Tanguay bid. It was Sakic’s first goal since the resumption of NHL play, his fifth in the past 25 games.
“We came back, and the most important thing is the two points, especially in this (division) race,” Sakic said. “It wasn’t our best game, but you’re not going to play your best game every night.”
Tanguay looked to have the game won in the final minute of overtime when he came in alone on Sanford. Tanguay deked past the goalie and put a shot into what appeared to be an open net, but Backman blocked the shot with his skate.
In the shootout, Hejduk stepped up after each team had failed on its first attempt, beating Sanford with a backhander up high. It was Hejduk’s first shootout goal of the season in six attempts.
“I didn’t have any plan on the shot,” Hejduk said. “I was struggling in the shootouts. So I just tried to react how the goalie is and, I don’t know, the hands just did something.”
The Avs took just 11 shots in the first two periods despite getting a 5-on-3 advantage for 1:23 early.
“It wasn’t easy,” said Avs goalie David Aebischer, who stopped all three shootout attempts to improve to 2-1 this season. “These games, I think we have to prepare ourselves a little bit better. We picked it up a bit at the end, and it was good enough today.”
Staff writer Adrian Dater can be reached at 303-820-5454 or adater@denverpost.com.
