Colorado and St. Louis Ready To Tango

By Shane Giroux of Colorado Avalanche Talk:

Whew! That was a long break from Avalanche action. Thankfully there was plenty of action from coast to coast to keep me entertained during the dry spell.

The Avalanche now have back-to-back games to play against the St. Louis Blues and Columbus Blue Jackets this weekend. They will then await the Flames on Oct 16th for the Avalanche’s first divisional matchup. The Blues and Avalanche are both 2-1-0 heading into the game tonight.

This game against St. Louis will be the first real look the Avalanche get against a team who upgraded themselves this year with the additions of Kariya, Guerin, Tkachuk and Mike Johnson. Ok, Guerin and Tkachuk are more like “we got these guys back” type signings but nonetheless, they’ve been looking half decent this year. Mike Johnson is a player I would have liked the Avalanche to sign but…win some, lose some.

A couple of the rookies I was anxious to see – Erik Johnson and David Perron – are not likely to be in the lineup. Erik Johnson, their top draft pick on ‘06, is out with a broken foot and David Perron has yet to see regular season action. Jay McKee and Eric Brewer are also out with injuries so their defensive corps is a bit depleted.

The Avalanche are coming off a big win against the San Jose Sharks on Sunday. After a big win followed by a long layoff, it’s hard to gauge how the Avalanche will look against the Blues. Teams often come out flat after long layoffs so don’t be surprised if the Blues storm the Avalanche for the first period. The Avalanche need to weather the initial attack and then find a way past the Avs-killer Manny Legace if they want to come away with points tonight.

The big news of the day of course is Theodore getting the nod in goal rather than Saturday against Columbus. It was expected that Theodore would get some action this weekend since the games are back-to-back with travel, but the expectation was that he would start against the Jackets – an arguably weaker team than the Blues – for his first NHL action this season.

This decision may come down to starting at home vs starting on the road. Road games have much less pressure attached to them – in my eyes anyways – and the coaching staff may have felt this scenario was the better option for Theodore’s return. There’s nothing worse for your confidence than being boo’d on home ice. No matter what sort of “he’s a professional” argument you make, he hears them and I’m sure it gets into his head.

So I’m looking for three things tonight:
1 – Solid start from Theodore
2 – Solid PK effort
3 – Improved faceoff percentage (I’d be happy with 45% even!)

They’ve had plenty of time to work on #2 and #3 but #1 is still a wildcard. So it should be an exciting game!