It's Never Too Early For A Report Card

My Avs are five games into the season. Five SCARY moments. So far, this season has been a stressful one for any Av fan, especially myself. There have been a couple surprises both positive and negative, a couple of heartbreaking moments, and a whole lot of nervously bitten nails. Do I remain optimistic? Absolutely. But... do I also think I need to buckle up for a long, tumultuous season? Without a doubt.

The Avs were off to rough start: 0-3. What makes it worse was all three games were one-goal games, and all three were lost in the final moments of the 3rd period. Their second game, for example, was lost to the Oilers with five seconds left. That destroys team confidence. Peter Budaj, who got his starting job back after Jose Theodore left, lost all three of those games and is now sitting with a nasty 4.38 GAA and .824 save %. Ouch. Big ouch.

Now the big surprise: Both their games have been won by none other than Andrew Raycroft. Yeah, that Andrew Raycroft. The bane of the Leafs? The guy they bought out? Yeah, that guy. In hiis first game he gave up 2 goals, one on a penalty shot and the other on a 5-on-3 power play. The 2nd game wasn't so great, giving up 4 goals to slumping Dallas. He's sporting a 3.00 GAA and .875 sv %, surely not superstar numbers... but better than Budaj. Hey, at least they're finally winning games... They're 2-3, and I'll take a 2 game winning streak over a 3 game losing streak any day. My goaltender prediction continues: The Avs will win games, but they will be close games that are characterized by a high score. We're talking 6-5, 5-4 type games as the Avs will have to struggle every single night with quite possibly the worst goaltending tandem in the NHL. Those sweet memories of Patrick Roy are fading faster than ever... If the Avs want to go ANYWHERE in the playoffs, they will either pull a Jose Theodore out of Budaj or Raycroft, or else pick up some goaltending help (Nikolai Khabibulin, anyone?).

The pleasant surprise has been the Avs scorers. 39 year-old Joe Sakic, the ageless wonder, shares the team lead in points with Paul Stastny with eight points in five games. And Milan Hejduk, who has underachieved since his 50-goal campaign of years past, has five goals in five games. With a potent scoring unit, the Avs should be able to match and hopefully best all the tallies their opponents will score on them. Let's not forget the Avs' underrated defense, which often seems worse than it really is because of the goaltending situation.

If everyone can stay healthy, it shouldn't be a bad season.