Vancouver can’t be perfect every night and tonight they caught a motivated Blues team in their barn. Andy McDonald had a goal and an assist and Alex Pietrangelo had two assists to lead the way for St. Louis. Jaroslav Halak made 23 saves to get the win. For Vancouver, they got down 3-1 in this one and Jannik Hansen’s third period goal was able to make it closer, but it wasn’t meant to happen. Bad news for the Canucks came in the form of a broken wrist for defenseman Andrew Alberts. Alberts now heads to LTIR and joins an astounding blue line injured list that features Alex Edler, Dan Hamhuis, and Keith Ballard.
On the day where the Avalanche saw Peter Forsberg retire from hockey, the team went out tonight and played as if they were in a funeral home getting destroyed by Calgary.Calgary jumped out to a 5-0 lead after the first period and never slowed down. Olli Jokinen and David Moss each had four point nights as they both had a goal and three assists. Jokinen’s night was ended early after being the victim of a terrible knee-on-knee hit from Philippe Dupuis. Dupuis received a five-minute major for kneeing and a game misconduct. Jokinen left the game and did not return to action.
Instead of freaking out and fighting everyone and their brother, the Flames just kept scoring, tallying nine goals in all and causing Avs goalies Peter Budaj and Craig Anderson to be cycled in and out of the game as the score kept going up. The loss is the seventh in a row for the Avs and tonight’s loss is the sort of game that could cause big changes to happen soon as the Avs played like they’ve given up on everything. Making matters worse for them, both Matt Duchene and David Jones left the game in the third period with separate injuries. Calgary also lost Tim Jackman during the game with a lower body injury.