Early in Avalanche winger Milan Hejduk’s NHL career, when he still was struggling to express himself and understand English, his team captain – a diehard Seattle Mariners fan – painstakingly tried to explain the basics of the American pastime to him as they worked on their sticks in the hallway of the Calgary Saddledome.
After all, it’s not as if you grow up debating when to put on the hit-and-run, collecting baseball cards, or even asking why everyone has to step out of the box and spit after every pitch in Usti-nad-Labem, which was in Czechoslovakia during Hejduk’s formative years.
Nearly a decade later, those two men talking in the hallway that day – Joe Sakic and Hejduk – are the only members of the Avalanche in that era to still be with Colorado, and Hejduk reflexively tosses out a baseball analogy when talking about the 2006-07 Avalanche’s late-season run.
“Now, it’s four points and we are in the ballgame,” Hejduk said Sunday, smiling, after his overtime goal gave the Avalanche a 4-3 victory over the San Jose Sharks at the Pepsi Center. “There’s a lot remaining, but we’ve won some hockey games and we’re pretty confident right now.”
Translation: The Avalanche, which is 8-0-1 in its past nine and opens a three-game road trip against the slumping Oilers at Edmonton on Wednesday night, now arguably has its playoff fate in its hands. The Flames and Avalanche both have 10 games remaining, including Calgary’s home game against Detroit tonight.
If Colorado wins both of the remaining head-to-head meetings in regulation, it could have the same number of points as the Flames in each team’s other eight games and almost certainly be the No. 8 seed by virtue of either more victories (the first tiebreaker) or a better head-to-head record (the second).
That’s the simplest means of explaining why the Avalanche still is in the ballgame, but even a split of the two games – while making it far more difficult – wouldn’t rule out Colorado catching Calgary.
“We’ve still got a lot of work left,” Avalanche defenseman John- Michael Liles said, then added that a few weeks ago, “I don’t know that anybody would have given us this kind of chance. When it’s going, it’s going, that’s how it is. For the first 60 games of the year, it didn’t seem like anything was really going and everything seems to be clicking right now. Kind of funny how it works, but we’ll take it.”
And when things are going well, Liles said, “you get those bounces. The puck bounces off the goalie and lands on your stick. Or it doesn’t bounce over your stick when you’re coming down the slot. It seems you kind of get those bounces.”
Footnotes
Sakic on Monday was named the second star in the league’s weekly three-star selections, behind only San Jose center Joe Thornton. Thornton had four goals and six assists for the Sharks, while Sakic had three goals and six assists in three games. The third star was Dallas center Mike Modano, who became the all-time U.S.-born goal scorer in NHL history Saturday, getting his 502nd and 503rd and passing Hall of Fame forward Joe Mullen. Mullen was raised in Manhattan, N.Y., and is the father of University of Denver sophomore winger Patrick Mullen, who until recently shared an apartment with Paul Stastny. … The Avs didn’t practice Monday. They will skate this morning at the Family Sports Center before leaving for Edmonton, where they face the Oilers on Wednesday and Friday before going to Vancouver for a Sunday meeting with the Canucks.
Terry Frei can be reached at 303-954-1895 or tfrei@denverpost.com.
