Patrice Brisebois already had talked his way through the play several times, facing cameras, tape recorders and – figuratively speaking – the music.
That was a lot more than many accountability-dodging pro athletes would have done under similar circumstances, and he didn’t have many teammates with him in the Colorado dressing room shortly after the doors opened to the media Tuesday night.
Repeatedly, the Avalanche defenseman explained that he had tried to make a first pass that could have led to a 3-on-2 for Colorado the other way, but it backfired, ending up on the stick of Mighty Ducks winger Dustin Penner, who fed Joffrey Lupul for the game-ending goal at 16:30 of overtime.
“For sure,” Brisebois said, “that’s the play that lost the game.”
Then Brisebois came to the bottom line.
“I’m really sorry,” he said.
He also is part of the deficiencies that the Avalanche managed to overcome and minimize in the regular season and, especially, in the surprising first-round upset of the Dallas Stars.
They’re glaring now, with the Avalanche down 3-0 to the Mighty Ducks.
Especially without the injured Ossi Vaananen, who wasn’t all-world in the first place, the Avalanche defense as a group has become unreliable. John-Michael Liles, a revelation for so long and seemingly so well-suited for the New NHL, has hit a wall.
Brisebois, signed to a two-year contract in the summer, actually had a decent game for much of the night in the 4-3 overtime loss to the Ducks, but the final play highlighted his mistake-prone game. Kurt Sauer is so far in the doghouse, it’s a bit surprising Joel Quenneville didn’t make him a healthy scratch.
And then the Avalanche’s “depth” up front proved to be, at least in this series, illusory, with Alex Tanguay especially failing to answer the challenge to prove himself as one of the game’s true stars – and not just one of the guys on that crowded second rung.
There’s a lot more to it than that, of course, but there’s only so much space.
A few days ago, after the Avs finished off the upset of the Stars, I wrote that unless they were embarrassed in the Western Conference semifinals against Anaheim, Colorado ultimately would be judged to have had a praiseworthy season in the NHL’s transitional year.
There are degrees of embarrassment, ranging from the scarlet-faced, never-going-to-forget-the feeling humiliation on one extreme, to pratfalls that can be forgotten or forgiven overnight. At this point, even with Colorado destined for elimination, the Avs don’t deserve both barrels. Neither does general manager Pierre Lacroix. Not yet, anyway.
In the next couple of days, and perhaps beyond if the Avalanche can manage to pull out Game 4 at home Thursday and avoid the sweep, those plucky 1975 New York Islanders and 1942 Toronto Maple Leafs are going to be cited as evidence that a rally from a 3-0 deficit can happen.
It can’t.
The Avs’ primary goal, if unstated and perhaps not even admitted to themselves, has to be to save face, to show that their justified reputation as a hard-working, entertaining, easy-to-like and perhaps even overachieving team wasn’t a sham.
“We have to look forward now to the fourth game, and we have to give that effort again,” said Avalanche defenseman Rob Blake, by far the best Colorado player in the series, especially as Quenneville has shortened his bench.
If they toss it in now, they deserve scorn.
That’s probably not going to happen, either. This can’t be taken away from them: They are one of the last eight standing, and they lasted longer than Detroit, Dallas and Philadelphia – among others.
So the more important issue is whether the Avs and Lacroix bury their heads in the sand about the flaws that have been exposed in this series against the speedy Ducks. Those flaws will need to be addressed in the offseason if this franchise is going to be able to return to the ranks of the NHL’s elite. If options aren’t involved, it might take buying out contracts, perhaps the second season of the two-year deals given Pierre Turgeon, Brisebois and Brad May.
It’s not as if these problems were unnoticeable during the regular season, including when the Avalanche limped down the stretch and in some ways were fortunate to even make the playoffs. But now they’re even more glaring, and they have been on display for even those who didn’t think that the Avalanche season began until the playoffs.
Staff writer Terry Frei can be reached at 303-820-1895 or tfrei@denverpost.com.
