When the Avalanche faces the Los Angeles Kings tonight at the Pepsi Center, the game almost certainly will match two of this NHL season’s workhorse goaltenders — Colorado’s Craig Anderson and Los Angeles’ Jonathan Quick.
Anderson, signed as an unrestricted free agent in the offseason, would be making his 64th start, far surpassing his previous highest workload as a pro, 58 games six years ago. Quick has 64 games under his belt.
“You don’t really think about it,” Anderson said. “You just get caught up in the moment. Stuff that happened back in October, you don’t really think about. You work hard all summer to get in shape, to work for something, and this is what I worked for all summer — to make sure I was in shape for a long haul.”
With the Avs in seventh place in the Western Conference, slumping and looking over their shoulders at No. 8 Detroit and No. 9 Calgary, Colorado coach Joe Sacco is showing few signs of backing off his reliance on Anderson.
The statistical evidence of whether Anderson is wearing down is mixed: After a terrific October, he seemed to be coming back to earth. But he got right back into it with a stunning January (1.72 goals-against average and .946 save percentage).
As recently as two weeks ago, he followed up a shutout against Florida with a larcenous 48-save game in a 5-3 win at Dallas. Yet he was yanked in the second period at Anaheim on Sunday when he gave up four goals in 19 shots, albeit with the Avs playing a shaky defensive game in front of him; and he again gave up four goals on 23 shots in the 4-3 overtime loss at Los Angeles on Monday. For March, his goals-against average is 3.15 and his save percentage is a so-so .906, but he had similar statistics in November and December.
“There’s a couple of reasons I don’t worry about it,” Sacco said of Anderson’s workload. “One reason is the Olympic break this year. Had Craig been a member of the U.S. team, then I probably would have a different opinion on that. He had two weeks of rest then. He also had an injury in the (Dec. 2) Florida game, and he missed four games and was off the ice, too, during that time.”
Anderson’s 2.53 goals- against average was 15th-best in the league heading into play Tuesday night and his .921 save percentage placed him seventh, while his seven shutouts tied him for second with former Florida teammate Tomas Vokoun and New Jersey’s Martin Brodeur. Phoenix’s Ilya Bryzgalov has eight.
With 10 games left, Anderson will surpass Patrick Roy’s highest workload as a Colorado goaltender, barring an injury or unexpected demotion. In his seven full seasons with the Avalanche, Roy was busiest when he played 65 games in 1997-98, and his lowest total was 61 games the next season. His games off were fairly predictable, coming when the Avalanche played on back-to-back nights. Whether he sat out the first or second night depended on the opponent and site, among other issues.
Sacco’s repeated use of Anderson on back-to-back nights has raised the most eyebrows.
“I don’t mind it,” Anderson said. “Obviously, with the guys traveling, maybe those aren’t going to be your best games as a team, but it gives you the opportunity to come in and give your team a chance to win and make a big save.
“A lot of times if you’re playing back to back and you’re playing a lot of games, you don’t overexert your energy. You conserve your energy in different ways, and you play more controlled. To me, when I play more controlled, playing conservatively, I play a lot better than maybe when I’m fresh and maybe too energetic.”
Anderson’s impressive start this season pushed him into consideration for the U.S. Olympic team’s No. 3 spot, behind Ryan Miller and Tim Thomas, but Quick — who, unlike Anderson, had been invited to the squad’s August orientation camp — was selected for what most assumed (correctly) would be a virtual honorary role as the unused No. 3.
“I think the break was good and bad,” Anderson said. “You lose a little bit of rhythm with the break, but at the same time, you’re able to give your body a rest.”
Sacco said: “He’s given us a chance to win just about every game he’s played in. And you can’t ask anything else from your goaltender.”
Backup Peter Budaj has only two starts in the 2010 calendar year, and they came in a 2-1 loss at Carolina on Jan. 8 and a 5-3 victory over St. Louis on March 16.
“To his credit, for the amount of times he’s played, and the distances he’s had between games, he’s played very well,” Sacco said.
Down the stretch, the Avalanche has two more sets of games on back-to-back nights. Even if Budaj plays one night in each of those sets, Anderson would end up making 72 starts. (His previous high of 58 came with the Chicago Blackhawks and their American Hockey League affiliate.)
“You have to get in the playoffs, first of all,” Anderson said. “That’s the main thing right now. We have to win our games. We’ve been pretty consistent all year. We’ve done a great job after a loss of playing the right way, of getting right back in the winning column. So I’m not too worried about that.
“It’s just a matter of the guys pulling together and learning to play a solid defensive game. You’re going to run into some good teams in the playoffs, where a goalie might be hot and you might not get three or four goals, like we have been pretty much all season long. So we have to learn how to play and win a game 1-0 and play a solid defensive hockey game.”
Terry Frei: 303-954-1895 or tfrei@denverpost.com
Los Angeles at Colorado
7 p.m. tonight, ALT, 101.9 FM
Spotlight on Jonathan Quick: If he plays tonightand it would be a shock if he doesn’t — it will be his 65th start of the season, second only to Martin Brodeur of the Devils. Quick most recently missed a game on March 12 to be with his wife for the birth of their first child.
Kings: The 4-3 overtime win Monday gave the Kings a two-game sweep of the Avs in L.A. this season. . . . The teams meet again in Denver on April 11, the final day of the regular season. . . . Former Avs winger Ryan Smyth, after scoring twice against Colorado for L.A.: “It is a dogfight right until the end for the playoff positions, and tonight we played desperate and wanted to win.” . . . The Kings enter tonight’s game with a two-point conference lead on the Avs.
Avalanche: The NHL on Tuesday suspended winger Darcy Tucker for one game without pay for making what the league said was “excessive physical contact” on the Kings’ Matt Greene on a third-period icing Monday. Tucker was called for tripping. The suspension will cost him $11,658.03. . . . In a rare move, Colorado remained overnight in Los Angeles following Monday’s game. The team traveled back to Denver on Tuesday and didn’t practice. . . . If the season had ended after Monday’s games, the Avs (No. 7 in the West) would be matched with the surging Phoenix Coyotes (No. 2) in the first round of the playoffs. The strange thing is that the pairing seemed possible earlier — when the Coyotes were fourth and Colorado was fifth. . . . This is a one-night stand for the Avalanche, which goes back on the road to face Phoenix and San Jose over the weekend.
Terry Frei, The Denver Post
