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Avalanche Weekly Preview
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Chris Stewart’s hat trick on Saturday night in the 7-3 win over the St. Louis Blues was the first by an Avalanche player in 199 games, dating all the way back to 2007 against, ironically, the Blues. It also gave Stewart the edge over Steve Stamkos in the NHL’s Three Stars of the Week award.
THE AVALANGELIST recaps Stewart’s week and why he was a perfect nomination for the league’s first star earlier today. We also have the following press release excerpt to post from our Avs info desk:
Stewart led all NHL scorers last week with nine points (five goals, four assists) in four games as the Avalanche (37-22-6) closed the week two points behind the first-place Vancouver Canucks in the Northwest Division title race. Stewart tallied one goal and one assist in a 3-2 loss to the Detroit Red Wings Mar. 1, recorded one goal and two assists in a 4-3 victory over the Anaheim Ducks Mar. 3 and notched his first career NHL hat trick and an assist in a 7-3 win over the St. Louis Blues Mar. 6. While the Avalanche rookie corps has earned well-deserved praise, the 22-year-old Stewart is enjoying one of the top seasons by a sophomore in the NHL. Colorado’s first-round choice, 18th overall, in the 2006 Entry Draft, Stewart leads the team in goals (24), plus-minus (+13) and shots (172) and ranks second in points (24-27–51).
Vancouver snuck away with a win against the Nashville Predators on Sunday night, so the Avalanche can’t take over the Northwest Division lead in Tuesday’s game. Even with a win, the tiebreaker goes to Vancouver since they have three more wins (40 to 37). Nevertheless, two massive points are on the line at Pepsi Center tomorrow night as the Avs try to keep at least a six-point gap between them and the Calgary Flames.
Along with Stewart’s fine performance on Saturday, it looks like fans are starting to recognize the legitimate talent oozing out of T.J. Galiardi, another rookie that is now getting first-line minutes. Paul’s Coffey from MILE HIGH HOCKEY made a great post on Galiardi’s play and gives a little credit to his underrated rookie season.
Like we explained in the last Blogger Roundup, Galiardi is not only a gifted scorer, he’s an amazing grinder. The hit he made on Erik Johnson on the boards against the Blues on Saturday was a momentum-shifting hit. Galiardi and the importance of body checks will be one of the topics on tonight’s AVALANCHE WEEKLY show!
A few other topics I’ll be discussing on the show is the Peter Mueller / Wojtek Wolski trade, Craig Anderson’s timely saves and the importance of getting rest during the Olympics, Stewart’s confidence and much more! Remember the show is every Monday from 6-7p MST on Mile High Sports Radio AM 1510! We are joined every week by Mike Haynes from Altitude TV so it’s a great show with a lot of quality analysis.
Adrian Dater from ALL THINGS AVS learned that Ruslan Salei is out indefinitely with another injury, but also noted that Kyle Cumiskey will be ready for action on Tuesday against Vancouver.
Sean from ANYTHING BUT DETROIT had some thoughts on the Lake Erie Monsters after their appearance on NHL Network against the Chicago Wolves. JIBBLESCRIBBITS takes the time to post some interesting news on the NHL2K video game series as well. We also found this hilarious post from the MS. CONDUCT blog with some enticing photos of new Lake Erie goalie John Grahame.
Avalanche fans can also send in their questions for Matt Hendricks to ALL THINGS AVS as they have a post open for comments through Thursday, March 11.
The Avalanche Guild is hosting another After-Hours game with the Beer and Blades adult hockey team following the Avs/Canucks game. Check back here tonight after the radio show for the event flyer and save on tickets to the game!
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| Print article | This entry was posted by Justin on March 8, 2010 at 4:09 pm, and is filed under Blogger Network. Follow any responses to this post through RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site. |
