Good night: I am so happy right now
The Lead
There was, of course, much complaining in hockey circles today about the quality of the Versus matchup.
And why not? No. 15 in the West vs. No. 15 in the East waging lusty battle to see which team could possibly play badly enough so as to allow the other to win.
As it turns out, the Avalanche are a far, far more dire team than even I have imagined and lost to the worst team in hockey 4-2 before, from the look of the crowd, 138 fans. Though they put 22 shots on net, Yann Danis stopped them all save for two Ryan Smyth bids to run his nice little streak to five solid games in a row (he’s only allowed five goals in that stretch but somehow went 3-2-0).
And it’s not like the Islanders’ leading scorer lit them up. The goalscorers for New York were Dean McAmmond (already rocking an “A” on his sweater after 10 days or so), Jesse Joensuu, Bruno Gervais and Jeff Tambellini, who netted their fifth, first, first and third goals of the year, respectively.
For Joensuu, who’s pictured above, it was the first of his career in his NHL debut, which is always great to see. Just look at his face. That right there is pure, unadulterated joy.
Sometimes (read: when I post on Puck Daddy) I catch a lot of crap for being too negative about everything in hockey, but seeing something like Joensuu’s first goal PLUS an embarrassing Avalanche loss? Perfect night. Couldn’t get any better than that.
