The Avs survived a meltdown in the third to win 4-3 in an eleven round shootout.

The second line of Brandon Yip, Matt Duchene and Milan Hejduk was the story of tonight's game for the Avs, keeping Patrick Lalime from getting his 200th career win.

That line was amazing tonight. They were the only ones who maintained their same attack for a full 60 minutes. It's even getting to the point that I would like to see Duchene get first line minutes, now that he can hold his own in the faceoff circle, with Stewart and Yip to see what magic would happen. My bet is it would be electric.

Then, put Hejduk with Wolski and Stastny and lower their minutes until they play to their ability. Wolski, in particular is doing too much. He needs to just get the puck, pass the puck, shoot the puck. Just stop trying to be fancy, all that he's doing is turning the puck over. Even on the shootout, Wolski is just trying too much

Overall this game was exciting with a lot of flow but frustrating in the third. The Avs, once again, sat back and allowed the opposition to come to them. If the Avs don't play their game, the gap between the other teams, talentwise, becomes apparent. If they play with 100% effort and speed, it is really hard to beat this team.

Quick shoutout to Brandon Yip who is singlehandedly making Marek Svatos unnecessary for this team. He's hitting, scoring and getting assists, a nice compliment to Matt Duchene's speed and tenacity. The two of them are a great pair and should be kept together.

Now the Avs need to take the huge momentum from this exciting, tough game and carry it with them on the plane to Calgary. Hopefully Calgary wins tonight so that first place in the Northwest division is on the line Monday.



1. Matt Duchene- Amazing game for the rookie.
2. Drew Stafford- two points in the game tonight.
3. Brandon Yip- Scored, assisted, was amazing

Facepalm of the game

Kyle Cumiskey gets the award tonight for being the worst Avs defenseman tonight. He was on the ice and out of position for the two Sabres even-strength goals and on the powerplay goal, got too focused on the side of the ice he wasn't covering. He can and must be better.

Sacco can smile!

After Matt Hendricks fired his shot past Lalime, the Altitude camera showed something on the Avs' bench that has yet to be seen: a Joe Sacco smile. I'm guessing he wasn't all that happy about the third period but ecstatic that they still won. It's great to see him smile and hopefully the team does it more often.

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