Craig Anderson is a self-proclaimed gear head, so much so he pays tribute to his beloved Corvette with the company racing logo on his goalie helmet. In racing metaphor, Anderson is off to a top-fuel dragster start to his first season with the Avalanche.
Stopping all 35 shots he faced, Anderson led the Avs to a 3-0 shutout of the defending Northwest Division champion Vancouver Canucks Saturday afternoon at the Pepsi Center. In helping the Avs get out to a 2-0 start to their season, Anderson has stopped 73 of the first 75 shots he’s faced (.973 save percentage) and has taken a victory-lane twirl both times afterward as the game’s No. 1 star.
“I just don’t think too much. I just read and react,” said Anderson, whose shutout was the eighth of his career.
Part of what goes into the job of goaltending is pure body language. The best always seem to have an attitude that nothing bothers them, and that’s what coach Joe Sacco has noticed about Anderson.
“What strikes me is his confidence,” Sacco said. “He seems to be very confident in there. Certainly I can’t go into detail about his technique and things like that, but his confidence is very noticeable. He’s seeing the puck well and seems square to the shooter.”
The Avs took a 1-0 lead by Wojtek Wolski late in the first period. Paul Stastny scored a pretty power-play goal at 15:16 of the second, redirecting Milan Hejduk’s pass past star Canucks netminder Roberto Luongo, and veteran Darcy Tucker scored his second goal in as many games, early in the third.
Adrian Dater: 303-954-1360 or adater@denverpost.com
