April 2, 2010 - Flames at Avalanche

Had a nice key moment from this one. This loss to the Flames was a pretty tough one - since with it the Flames tied the Avalanche in points. Spoiler alert: The Av's clinched a playoff spot several days later, meaning the Flames are out.



Calgary Flames left wing Nigel Dawes (15) scores past Colorado Avalanche goalie Craig Anderson (41).

March 31, 2010 - Ducks at Avalanche

The dreaded Ducks came to town and ate the Av's breakfast. Not a great game for me besides a little jube from a pair of potential hall-of-famers.

Anaheim Ducks right wing Teemu Selanne (8) and teammate center Saku Koivu (11) celebrate a Selanne goal (the 601st of his career).


A buddy of mine lent me his 12-24mm lens for a period. It's a wild perspective and would be fun to have on me all the time. Here's a shot of Anderson during player introductions.

March 24, 2010 - Kings at Avalanche

I had been looking forward to shooting the Kings, since they are having a pretty good year and didn't visit Denver up to this point. I focused on star Anze Kopitar (looking like Darth Vader with those dark circles around his creepy eyes) and former Av Ryan Smyth (below). Both players are having good years.


Los Angeles Kings left wing Ryan Smyth (94) attempts to wrap the puck past Colorado Avalanche center Ryan O'Reilly (37) as goalie Craig Anderson (41) minds the net during a regular season game between the Colorado Avalanche and the Los Angeles Kings at the Pepsi Center in Denver, Colorado.


The Av's had a nice 3-1 lead going into the 3rd period, but of course played only defense for the final period of regulation and gave up the tying goal with only a few minutes left in regulation. It almost seemed like both teams wanted to go to a shootout, and the Av's won by shutting down both Kopitar and Smyth while the Av's Peter Mueller and Chris Stewart each scored.

March 17, 2010 - Flames at Avalanche

That stung a little. Av's couldn't recover from 2-0 first period despite a 6-on-5 goal with less than 30 seconds to go. Flames are a bubble team so they may have wanted this one worse. On top of them having lost the previous 4 matchups this season.

Flames defenseman Mark Giordano had a blast from around the face off circle that took him off his skates, making for a unique shot. No goal, but this guy seemed dangerous this game.



Anderson looks frustrated as winger Peter Mueller hangs his head.

March 11, 2010 - Panthers at Avalanche

Not the most inspired effort I've seen (read: yawn) but the Avalanche pulled off a 3-0 shutout of MVP goalie Craig Anderson's former team.

The high moment of the first was a nice little fight at center ice between Cody McLoed and Gregory Campbell of the Panthers.

Colorado Avalanche left wing Cody McLeod (55) and Florida Panthers center Gregory Campbell (11) fight during the first period.

It was Anderson's first effort against the team that let him walk as a free agent after the 2008-09 season. He shut them out for his 7th of the season. As of Thursday, this tied for the NHL lead as of last week. He's since been passed by Brzgolov of the Coyotes, who now has 8.


Colorado Avalanche goalie Craig Anderson (41) works against his former team during a regular season game between the Colorado Avalanche and the Florida Panthers at the Pepsi Center in Denver, Colorado. The Avalanche shut out the Panthers 3-0. Anderson earned his NHL-leading (tied) seventh shutout.

March 6, 2010 - Blues at Avalanche

Nice easy win for the Av's, led by a Chris Stewart hat trick. None of the goals happened in front of me, but I found some nice celebration.

Anderson faced the greater number of shots, and stopped enough to earn the win. Here he gets a nice little congratulations tap by Stewart, who was not only the star of the game, but earned the honor of being named the NHL star of the week. Nice.

I also liked this shot of the bench celebrating a Milan Hejduk goal. He had two as well - in his first game back for the team.

March 1, 2010 - Red Wings at Avalanche

These arch-rivals' 2nd meeting in Denver this year, and this time the Red Wings fans walked out happy. And there were a lot of them.

Av's held their own, particularly in the 2nd period where they came back from a 2-0 deficit. This breakaway by Yip ended with him shooting from his knee and not finding a way around Detroit goalie Jimmy Howard.



Ultimately, the visitors prevailed. Here's a clean image of future Hall-of-Famer Niklas Lidstrom celebrating the game-winner, a power play goal about halfway through the third period. You don't see hockey players smile too much, and with Detroit on the bubble to make a playoff spot this year, these guys are truly happy for every goal and point they can get.



Tough loss for the Av's, but they followed it up with a couple of moves at the trade deadline and a nice win in Anaheim on March 3.

February 12, 2010 - Coyotes at Avalanche

Friday nights at the Pepsi Center really are the best. Especially when the Av's win. I read things on the hockey blogs words blasting the Av's like (regarding today's game at L.A.): "A win by the Avalanche would move them into 3rd and guarantee them at least 5th place over the break. Certainly, the effort will need to be better than it has been for that to happen.". Dater did not post anything on this one, but I am sure he would have blasted the way they played until the 3rd period, when they caught up and scored the game winner.

Phoenix Coyotes left wing Vernon Fiddler (38) crashes into Colorado Avalanche goalie Craig Anderson (41) as the puck flies through the air in a clowd of snow during a regular season game between the Colorado Avalanche and the Phoenix Coyotes at the Pepsi Center in Denver, Colorado. The Avalanche beat the Coyotes 2-1 in regulation.

Duchene scored both goals, but both were opposite end of the ice from me... so I didn't get action on the goals. Here's a celebration pic. I did catch some really decent action at my end.

Colorado Avalanche center Matt Duchene (9) and Colorado Avalanche defenseman Brett Clark (5) celebrate a goal (Duchene's 2nd goal on the night, and Clark with the 1st assist).

This was the last Av's home game before the Olympic break. Next up: Red Wings on March 1st. Should be a good one.

February 10, 2010 - Thrashers at Avalanche

Crazy comeback. The Av's flipped their script for this one by coming back from a 3-1 deficit early in the 3rd period, to an OT win. The first image is of the celebration of the OT win, which was significant in a couple ways - it was the Av's first OT "sudden victory" win of the year, and was the fastest in franchise history, coming at :09 of the 5-minute period. Plus, it was awesome.


Colorado Avalanche defenseman Kyle Cumiskey is lifted into the air by teammate Scott Hannan as Chris Stewart (25) and Paul Stastny celebrate Cumiskey's game winner during a regular season game between the Colorado Avalanche and the Atlanta Thrashers at the Pepsi Center in Denver, Colorado. The Avalanche beat the Trashers 4-3, with the game winning goal coming 9 seconds into the sudden victory overtime period.

24 year old Paul Stastny is headed to the Olympics as part of the US olympic team.

February 8, 2010 - Blues at Avalanche

A nice win for the Av's. They blew the game open in the 2nd period, and the final score was 5-2.

Here's Olympian Paul Stastny showing happiness after a nice goal.



Key enforcer David Koci busted his hand pretty bad in an early fight. With him unavailable in the 2nd period, power forward Chris Stewart policed the ice. His opponent, B.J. Crombeen, is apparently a Denver native.

February 6, 2010 - Oilers at Avalanche

Nice, balanced image of young defenseman Kyle Cumiskey.



The Av's have beaten the Oilers by a score of 9-0 in their last two contests in Denver. Not much else to say.

February 2, 2010 - Blue Jackets at Avalanche

Besides the slow start and relatively tame 1st period, this was a fun game to be at. These ladies were having fun at least. The Pepsi Center was pretty empty, with entire sections of the upper levels nearly empty. I still found some fans to photograph.


The rookies led the charge, with Brandon Yip (pictured) and Ryan O'Reilly each scoring two goals. T.J. Galiardi (also pictured below) had assists on 4 of the 5 goals the Av's scored. Even the single goal scored by the BJ's was a beauty, and short-handed as well. Here, Yip and Galiardi celebrate what would turn out to be the winning goal in the 5-1 victory.


The only real star player on the Blue Jackets is Rick Nash, so I followed him with my lens. Here, he is stuffed by an Av's defender as he falls to the ice after taking a shot. Nash did have the assist on the BJ's goal.

Thanks for looking!

January 31, 2010 - Rangers at Avalanche

Av's loss, but a good game to be at. Rangers star Marion Gaborik had a hat trick, and since about 1/3 of the fans were Rangers fans, he even got a couple dozen hats thrown on the ice. Here's a shot of his 3rd goal, where he beat Kyle Quincey in a one-on-one break, fell, and slid past Av's goalie Craig Anderson before smashing into the back boards and being mauled by teammates.



Here's a shot of some of the hats thrown.

January 28, 2010 - Wild at Avalanche

Well all the winning had to stop eventually. Another 1-0 victory for the Wildebeests. Here's a shot of the celebration by Wildebeest Martin Havlat. Another ugly and boring game against the Wild, who have a unique - and boring - style of play where they basically play defense the whole time and hope for a mistake by the opposing team. Here's the key image from the game.



Next up: The Rangers visit on Sunday. Maybe I'll post that timely!

January 24, 2010 - Stars at Avalanche

Av's shut the Stars out 4-0, which means I didn't get much action (I typically focus on the away team). In fact, I was really disappointed with my action shots from this game.

Instead of posting action, I'll show an image I try to make almost every night. Goalie Craig Anderson always stretches in the crease during the announcement of the night's starters. The arena shines a spotlight on him, and every once in a while I'll have a nice shot. Take a look.

January 22, 2010 - Predators at Avalanche

Another win for the Av's, this one was something of a nailbiter. 2-1 victory. Had a nice shot of the game-winner from Brandon Yip - and it was nearly identical to the shot used by Denver Post photographer Karl Gehring (see the photo used with this article: http://www.denverpost.com/avalanche/ci_14252418). I admire Karl's ability to always nail the key moments from up above of both hockey and baseball.



I also liked this shot of rookies T.J. Galiardi and Ryan O'Reilly discussing an upcoming penalty kill. These "defensive forwards" have stepped up and been awesome to watch when the man advantage is for the other team.

January 18, 2010 - Oilers at Avalanche

The Av's went on a tear this month - winning 6 in a row, including this one against the Oilers. One of the stars for the Av's of the evening was Kyle Cumiskey, who had 2 goals in the 6-0 routing. Not the most interesting image, but I like shooting photos of these guys in their early years.

January 16, 2010 - Devils at Avalanche

Av's won this one. Put up 2 against guaranteed hall-of-famer Martin Brodeur (plus an empty-netter). As always, fun to shoot an Eastern Conference team. Nothing too crazy about the images. Here's a shot of O'Reilly slapping a shot between a few Devils defenseman.



Oilers tonight, so I'll post soon.

January 6, 2010 - Islanders at Avalanche

The Av's lost this one. Pretty tame game overall. Its fun to see a match-up between the 2009 #1 pick John Tavares and the #3 pick Matt Duchene. The two have similar season-to-date totals (with 30 points and both at best -5 under), but in the last month Duchene has out-pointed Tavares 10-3. Here's an image of the the lower pick bashing the first pick.



Thanks for looking!

December 26, 2009 - Stars at Avalanche

Great game for the Av's, not a great game for this photographer. I'll post a couple I liked OK. 4-1 victory, including an empty-netter. Chris Stewart showed up, and 29-year old rookie Chris Durno scored his first NHL goal.



Colorado Avalanche center Matt Duchene (9) has a wrap-around assist to right wing Milan Hejduk (23) (not pictured) as Dallas Stars goalie Alex Auld (31) tries to follow the puck during a regular season game between the Colorado Avalanche and the Dallas Stars at the Pepsi Center in Denver, Colorado.

Colorado Avalanche center Matt Hendricks (15) bleeds from his eyebrow as he and left wing Cody McLeod skate during a regular season game between the Colorado Avalanche and the Dallas Stars at the Pepsi Center in Denver, Colorado. The Avalanche beat the Stars 4-1.

Next up on the schedule are the Islanders on January 6th. Thanks for looking!