Congratulations to the six honorees who will be officially inducted into the Hockey Hall of Fame Monday: Rob Blake, the late coach Pat Burns (represented by his widow, Line), Peter Forsberg, Dominik Hasek, referee Bill McCreary and Mike Modano.
I got to watch all six play, coach or officiate and had the special privilege of covering Blake (in Los Angeles and Colorado), Forsberg with the Avalanche, and both in the Olympics.
Pretty cool that Blake and Forsberg will be joining Ray Bourque, Jari Kurri, Patrick Roy and Joe Sakic into the HHOF, which just goes to show how good those Avalanche teams were from the time the franchise arrived in Denver in 1995 until the early 2000s. The Avalanche won the Stanley Cup twice but could have -- probably should have -- won more with all the talent they had.
Bourque and Kurri, of course, had their best seasons with the Boston Bruins and Edmonton Oilers, respectively.
Here's an NHL.com story on Forsberg.
Here's one on Blake.
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As for this Avalanche edition, the team will return to the ice for practice Tuesday after managing to win two games in a row for the first time by beating the Rangers and Devils after trailing both in the third period. They'll take a 6-8-5 record into a two-game homestand with a chance to reach the .500 mark against Washington on Thursday and Carolina on Saturday.
Five of the next six games will be played at the Pepsi Center, an opportunity to get back into the playoff picture as NHL teams hit the quarter pole of the season.
It's still baffling to me how poorly guys like Ryan O'Reilly and Gabriel Landeskog have played. O'Reilly has two goals and eight assists in 19 games and has a minus-10 plus/minus rating. Landeskog has four goals and three assists, is a minus-11 and has been taking a lot of unnecessary penalties. Nathan MacKinnon, who has been shuttled between right wing and center while skating on various lines, is minus-9 with five goals and four assists.
As for defenseman Nick Holden, what a difference a year makes. He has one goal, two assists and is a minus-15, one of the worst such figures in the league. Jarome Iginla has been a notoriously slow starter throughout his career, but his only two goals came in the same game, Oct. 24 against Vancouver; his second goal came with 43.3 seconds left in the 7-3 blowout.
Matt Duchene has played better than his numbers (6-7--13, minus-1 rating) and Alex Tanguay (7-4--11, plus-2) looks like he's come all the way back from the hip injury and eventual surgery that limited him to 16 games last season. Erik Johnson (3-8--11, plus-2) is easily the Avalanche's best defenseman while averaging a team-high 23:29 in ice time. He played 30:25 in New Jersey.
The Avalanche still spend too much time in their own end and give up too many quality chances, but they were better Saturday in the 3-2 win in New Jersey and were more dangerous in the offensive end against the Devils and Rangers.
They simply have to give more support to goalies Semyon Varlamov (2.95 goals-against average, .918 save percentage) and Reto Berra (2.70, .914) at both ends of the rink.