Avalanche 6, Predators 5: I Was There

I picked going to this game based on the time and cost of the tickets. I got a good deal because it was a weekday afternoon game (President's Day). And I would be taking Joe to his first hockey game.

But Sunday night I was checking out the Predators stats. Best in the league at preventing goals. Worst in the league at scoring goals. Sounded like a super low scoring game. Then I started reading about their starting goalie, Pekka Rinne. He's fantastic. I was a little bummed. I had an awful vision of a 2-0 Predators win.

I read a comment on ESPN.com's preview that someone guessed that Rinne wouldn't play against the Avs, since Nashville would be playing Detroit the next day. I hoped that would be the case.

I show up about 25 minutes early to catch some warmups. The first thing I check is who's in the Nashville net. It's Rinne. And a surprise, Giguere is warming up in the Colorado net. Whatever.

I try and take some pictures of the warm-ups but with my crappy camera it's hard to get a good one. This is the best shot I got:

Here's the Avs taking the ice:

And to my delight...Varlamov is in the Colorado net and Pekka Rinne is on the Nashville bench. Mason is the Predators goalie today.

My hopes for the game were the win and seeing one Avs goal on the net in front of me. I knew that they were only shooting this way for the second period, so that might be tough to get. 

Let's play some hockey.

Four minutes in the Avs get a super lucky goal. The puck bounces in the crease and Mason kicks it in his own net. 

Later Barrie gets his first NHL goal on a slap shot one-timer on the power play. It's 2-0. What team is this?

The Predators score a power play goal of their own. After one, it's 2-1 Avs. 

At intermission we watched about twenty 5-year-olds play against five guys in mascot costumes. And I sort of figured they would let the kids win. Nope. It was 3-0 mascots before they finally let them have a pity goal. Jerky mascots. You gotta feel for the five-year-old goalie. 

Anyways, I went to Jalapeno's Cafe to get my monster nachos. This year they offered pork carnitas on them. 7.75 and delicious. 

We get back to our seats just as they're about to get underway.

Three minutes in, there's a wild play. All of a sudden Duchene has the puck and he's behind everybody. He slows down, he's about 10 feet in front of me at this point, and shoots it top shelf, hitting the water bottle.

The replay clearly shows it was a blown call. But what can you do? You play to the whistle. 

Halfway through the game it's 3-1. And then with 9:44 to go in the 2nd, Nashville makes it 3-2. Here I am thinking about the last Avs where they had a 4-1 lead in Edmonton but lost 4-6. 

A minute later...Stastny drives to the net, puck gets deflected right to Kobasew who slams it home five-hole. It's now 4-2 and I got to see two goals in my living room.

Two minutes later the Avs get caught in a change and Nashville gets a breakaway goal and it's 4-3. The third time that they've cut the deficit to one. 

16 seconds later...Stastny gets a goal on the second rebound. He kept digging and now it's 5-3. The fourth time that the Avs have extended the lead to two.

13 seconds later...is the play of the game. The Avs dump the puck in the zone to Shea Weber. Their captain. Somehow voted third-star of this game. 6'4", 240lbs. He has the puck. And here comes Matt Duchene. Our finesse guy. 5'11", 200 lbs. Comes in and checks him into the boards and off the puck. Quick pass from behind the net to McGinn who one-time it home. 6-3 Avs. The PA was still announcing the previous goal. 

Here's the video:

With a minute left in the 2nd, a slapshot that is going well wide bounces of an Avs skate and into the net. 6-4 after two. Seven goals in the period. Four Avs goals right in front of my face. 

Oh yeah, after goal #6, the Predators pulled Mason and put in Rinne. So now there's 20 minuts of hockey and I'm thinking that the Avs won't get a goal past Pekka. So can they hold on?

3rd period shots on goal: 17-5 Nashville.

With seven minutes to go the refs call a penalty against Colorado, the 5th against the Avs. It was the first one that really got booed.

But they kill it off.

And then there was a shift where McGinn didn't have a stick, but they killed that off.

The Predators pull Rinne with two minutes to go. And with constant pressure they get a goal to cut it to 6-5.

1:18 to go.

Edge of our seats. What a game. There's a puck that comes close with about 7 seconds to go but it goes wide.

And your number one star of the game is...

Matt Duchene.

I mean, if I could draw up the game, that would be just how you'd want it. Lots of scoring. Specifically Avs goals right in front of me. Tight at the buzzer but a regulation win to get the two points, zero for Nashville. The last game I was at ended on a Landeskog sudden death overtime goal. That's going to be tough to beat. But this one was good in a different way. That second period was crazy.

So I come home and check the highlights. And yep you can see me. I'm wearing my gray Avs shirt with a white long-sleeve shirt under it.

In this next one you can see me holding my Monster Nachos!

And if go back up to watch Duchene's play of the game you can see me clapping hard for his check/steal on the replay.