Five thoughts on Game 1- Avs vs. Preds
1. The NBC announcers had two Avs talking points: They are young and inexperienced, and Samuel Girard played for Nashville. Otherwise I don’t think they watched any Avs games this season.
Other Nashville items NBC checked off their list:
-Video of an Elvis mannequin
-Neon lights
-Preds fans in sparkly boas
-Photo of Johnny Cash stoned and eating a birthday cake while sitting under under a bush.
2. The Avs really missed EJ, especially in the 3rd. Zadorov had a nifty goal and Girard is plucky but the Avs don’t have defensive depth to hang for three periods against the Preds. I will be beating the “Avs don’t have enough defensive depth” drum until Cale Makar and Conor Timmins arrive.
3. I hate Ryan Hartman a lot already. I’m not at Todd Bertuzzi/Brad Marchand/Kirk Maltby levels yet but his hatred is just out of the box and should grow into a wonderful focus for my angst.
4. The Preds basically double teamed MacKinnon all night. The Avs have one scoring line. The math on this isn’t hard. I want Alex Kerfoot to turn into a better Dan Hinote and punch somebody in the throat while deflecting pucks in off his ass. Nobody parlayed the “irritating rollerblader with one move” triple threat into success like Hinote did.
5. If the Avs want to win a game in this series they need start hitting and clean up their net. Bernier can get hot but no matter how much we don’t want to admit it he’s a career backup. The kids need to grow up a lot between now and game two.
Damn, it’s nice to be in the playoffs again!
