Chicago – It would be an overstatement to say that Patrice Brisebois cost the Avalanche at least a point Sunday night. But not by much.
Two mistakes by the veteran Avs defenseman in a key two-minute stretch of the second period proved the turning point in Colorado’s 2-1 loss to the Chicago Blackhawks at the half-empty United Center.
The loss snapped the Avs’ three-game winning streak and made a tough-luck loser out of goalie Jose Theodore, whose play should have been good enough to get his team at least a point.
But two Brisebois gaffes led to a power-play goal by Blackhawks captain Adrian Aucoin at 12:58 of the second, breaking a 1-1 tie. Brisebois put the Avs down one man at 9:54 by passing the puck to a crowded area by the Avs’ bench on a line change, drawing a too-many-men penalty when the puck struck teammate Mark Rycroft. Just when the Avs had nearly finished killing off that penalty, Brisebois was whistled for hooking, giving Chicago a 5-on-3 for nine seconds. With 47 seconds left on Brisebois’ penalty and the Avs’ penalty-killing unit looking winded, Aucoin beat Theodore with a partially screened slap shot from the blue line.
Avs coach Joel Quenneville would have preferred Brisebois dump the puck into the Chicago end – even if it would have drawn an icing violation – rather than try the risky pass by the bench on a line change.
“We could have made a better play before that; just dump it in before you bring it back (to Brisebois),” Quenneville said. “It’s a tough play, knowing if it just goes by everybody when he dumped it in, there would have been no problem, either. Unfortunately, it got cut off there.”
Brisebois said his intention was to create an odd-man scoring chance for his team with the pass.
“I faked to dump it in, I came back and everybody moved on the (Chicago) side. I saw (Ian Laperriere) from the bench, and I just wanted to give it to Lappy and (get) a breakaway,” Brisebois said. “Rycroft was just like 2 feet from the board. That’s too bad. Sometimes 2 feet makes a huge difference.”
About the hooking call that led to the game-winner by Aucoin, Brisebois said: “I tried to reach the guy and (steal) the puck. My stick got stuck on him, and he made a move and the referee called it. That’s too bad, because we were killing that penalty perfectly.”
The Avs had just 12 shots through the first two periods, but got a pretty tip-in goal from Brett McLean. The Avs outshot Chicago 17-6 in the third, but veteran goalie Nikolai Khabibulin made some good saves – and the Avs hurt themselves by losing pucks at the last second and trying to be too fancy at times.
“We didn’t bear down,” Quenneville said. “We had our chances in the third, but we didn’t do much over the first two periods. We were buzzing around the net, but our timing or our perseverance and our battling in that area wasn’t good enough.”
Theodore, who stopped 23-of-25 shots – two of them breakaways – in his first action in four games, said: “I thought we were in the game for 60 minutes. Until the last second it was a tight game.”
The loss ruined a stellar game by Colorado’s Tyler Arnason, playing his first game in Chicago as a visitor.
“(He) might have been our best player,” Quenneville said. “We say that quite a bit, but he was good tonight.”
Staff writer Adrian Dater can be reached at 303-954-1360 or adater@denverpost.com.
