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Veteran goalie Jean-Sebastien Giguere, who will get the start in tonight’s game against the New York Islanders at the Pepsi Center, delivered a riveting interview speech after this morning’s skate. I rode the coattails of radio dude Marc Moser on this one, and Giggy kept ‘er going for about five minutes. Since Moser was asking the questions, I don’t want to publish his entire interview, but you can listen to it pregame.

“This is a must-win for us. We have to stop the bleeding right now,” Giggy said. “We can’t let this go on any longer. We need to establish ourselves at home. Enough talking. Right now it’s time to have some action. You have no chance in (heck) in this league to make the playoffs if you don’t (win at home).”

The Avs are on a four-game losing streak and 1-5 at home. They had a players-only meeting after practice Wednesday.

“Everybody’s desperate level needs to go up a bit, and hopefully we should see that tonight,” Giguere said. “My job is to try to give the team a chance to win. I’m going to hopefully do that.”

Defenseman Shane O’Brien played with Giggy in Anaheim. “He’s a competitor. There’s a reason why he’s won a Stanley Cup and the Conn Smythe Trophy. He doesn’t like to get scored on in practice, he doesn’t like losing at anything. We’re glad we have him on our team, in our dressing room, and he’s going to compete like crazy when he’s in net.”

Meanwhile, we have updates on Peter Mueller/lineup changes on our breaking news page at www.denverpost.com/sports.

Keep tabs with Mike Chambers on Twitter: @MChambersDP

At tonight’s Avs-Islanders game, the “Avs Better Halves” (player wives, girlfriends) will be selling bracelets around the concourses in support of the families of those who lost husbands and fathers in the terrible Jaroslavl Lokomotiv Russian plane crash that took the lives of former Avs Ruslan Salei and Karlis Skrastins.

If you’ve got an extra buck or two, you’ll be giving to a good cause.

Here is Peter Mueller talking to CBS 4′s Gary Miller after today’s practice. Mueller might return to the lineup Thursday against the New York Islanders at the Pepsi Center.

Keep tabs with Mike Chambers on Twitter: @MChambersDP

The Avalanche is halfway through practice right now and oft-injured left wing Peter Mueller is skating with a blue sweater on the Matt Duchene-centered line with David Jones. Won’t know if Mueller — who has been battling concussion problems for some 18 months and played just 18 NHL games with the Avs during that span — will return to the lineup in Thursday’s game against the visiting New York Islanders. He has missed the past 12 games after playing ineffectively in the first three, and ultimately returned to the injured list with a “head” injury. I’ll talk to Mueller and ask coach Joe Sacco in about the situation after practice and update on our breaking-news page at www.denverpost.com/sports.

Everyone except winger Daniel Winnik is practicing today after the team returned from Detroit and Tuesday’s 5-2 loss to the Red Wings.

Here are today’s lines:
Mueller-Duchene-Jones
Landeskog-O’Reilly-Kobasew (no Winnik)
Lindstrom-Stastny-Hejduk
McLeod-Galiardi/McClement-Porter

Keep tabs with Mike Chambers on Twitter: @MChambersDP

SOMEWHERE OVER THE MIDWEST – How cool is it to have wireless internet usage in an airplane? Pretty damn cool if you ask me. Just had to get a blog in while I’m up here. I even got the exit row on this flight from Detroit to Denver, and I got coffee and sparkling water on the open tray table next to the vacant seat beside me. Life is good – though I still can’t stand flying in general.

I wanted to put a link to a story I wrote for SI.com, that came out yesterday. They asked me to write something on former Av Ian Laperriere, who is being nominated for Sports Illustrated’s Sportsman of the Year.

Avs fans certainly know Lappy was a favorite, on and off the ice. This is the story I wrote as to why I believe he should win it. Pass it along.

Also, here are your latest SI NHL Power Rankings. They were written before last night’s Avs loss.

Mike Chambers is handling Avs practice today. Let’s hope the reports are good about Peter Mueller’s practice. Avs could certainly use him back in the lineup.

OK, that’s enough now. It’s getting a bit bumpy and I’m getting blurry vision trying to see what I’m typing.

Paul Sancya/AP

DETROIT - So here we are, at the 15-game point, and the record is 7-7-1. Couldn’t be more average than that. I am not going to psycho-analyze the Colorado Avalanche to death here. It’s late and it would take a couple hours to talk about all the little things wrong with the team, the potential solutions, etc. etc. etc.

But things are going to get serious around here if this team continues its current floundering. For arguably the first time in their two-plus seasons together, there is real pressure starting to mount on Avs coach Joe Sacco, and GM Greg Sherman. I have no evidence of anything impending, but the “whispering” around the league is picking up regarding the job statuses of Sacco and Sherman.

It’s the law of the jungle in the NHL: win or else. Generally, any new coach gets three years, max, to prove they can be a consistent winner. The rule on GMs is “you get two coaches before you take the fall the next time”, so if Sacco is replaced, that new coach would be the second in Sherman’s tenure. On paper anyway, Sherman is likely to survive.

And yet, we all know he gets blame for what has gone on too. He signed off on the signings of forwards such as Joakim Lindstrom and Chuck Kobasew this summer – two guys who are playing BIG roles with this team right now – and neither is getting the job done. The numbers on Kobasew tonight: 8:17 played, two shots on net, no points, minus-1. Lindstrom: 15:55, zero shots, no points, minus-1.

I don’t need to toss in any sarcastic barbs about the play of those two. The numbers speak for themselves.

This team has no second line right now. None. Matt Duchene was moved back to centering a line with David Jones (terrible lately, and again tonight) and a grab-bag of others. Paul Stastny had a fairly invisible game (19:38, two shots, no points, minus-1), which just makes things so much worse when Duchene is stuck with poorly performing linemates.

Question is: why did Joe Sacco move Duchene off the Stastny line tonight? I asked him that after the game (video below), but not quite sure I understood the answer. Those two combined for multiple goals the previous two games, so why switch so soon?

That is one of the hard questions that will face Sacco perhaps. Is he juggling lines too much? Others include: Does he throw guys in his doghouse too fast? Does he cause guys to lose confidence too fast, instead of getting the intended effect of making them want to show they can play once they get another chance?

I don’t really want to throw my opinions all over the place here. I’m the beat writer of this team. Yeah, I’m a columnist too, but when it comes to things like job security of coaches and all the decisions they make, I generally like to defer to the numbers and just let the people in charge of their business do what they do and I report about it.

I like Joe Sacco and certainly don’t wish him any ill will. He’s got a family and he works his butt off with this team. It’s not a question of will or effort with this guy. He’s always been a stand-up guy, easy to work with as a media guy and I have nothing but respect for him.

But we all know this is a brutal business, and coaches get fired all the time. We only need to look toward St. Louis the other day for further proof of that.

Whether players are “tuning out” Sacco now or things like that? To me, that is one of the worst, most overused cliches in pro sports and I have zero faith in that argument, nor do I have any evidence it’s the case inside the Avalanche dressing room.

Let’s think about that for a second: you really think players want to perform poorly on the ice just to get rid of a coach? Seriously? You think they want failure to their own careers every night, just to spite a coach? No way in hell that’s the case.

Yeah, players can and do hate a coach at times. Yeah, there no doubt have been times when players didn’t like Joe Sacco, who may not like him now and may not in the future. But very rarely have I ever come across a player who didn’t want to go out and be a star on the ice, no matter who the coach is. I mean, the whole “tuning out” thing is just way too easy.

And yet, I believe it IS true sometimes: coaches may just not be able to get through as easy the longer they’re on the job. It’s just how we humans function. We get bored/tired/irritated by the same thing after a while. “Familiarity breeds contempt” is one of the few cliches I do believe in.

Now, about Sherman:
For those of you wanting him to go out and “make a big trade”: he’s already made two major trades in the past eight months. One was with St. Louis, the other with Washington. You know the personnel involved.

Sherman has staked his legacy on those two deals, at least his legacy to this point.
How’s it looking so far?
- Erik Johnson hasn’t been the difference-maker the team had hoped. He’s been pretty good at times, pretty bad at times and pretty ordinary at other times. Very rarely has he been great. Jay McClement, also acquired in the deal, has terrible statistics. That’s just the fact of the matter.

- Semyon Varlamov has looked very good much of the time, but he’s starting to bog down from the play in front of him. I really don’t blame him much for any of the recent troubles, except for that one really bad game in Dallas. And yet, I can’t sit here and say “Wow, what a steal by the Avalanche getting this guy!” He’s been good, at times very good, but has he been great? Nope. And the worse this team’s record gets, the more fans will gnash their teeth over this fact: the Avs have no first-round pick in next year’s draft, because of the trade to get him.

I really think the signings of Kobasew and Lindstrom are two of the bigger black marks on Sherman’s recent record. I understand what he was trying to do with the two blockbuster trades, and I can buy into some of the reasoning and DO think both trades could still look good in the long run (and don’t forget the Avs got a real good-looking defensive prospect in the Johnson deal, Duncan Siemens).

But the signings of Lindstrom and Kobasew represent an early failure on Sherman’s off-season maneuverings. It is just killing the Avs right now having to trot out these two guys on the first and second lines. Why didn’t the Avs make a bigger run at better free agent forwards over the summer, somebody like, say, a Michael Ryder or a Simon Gagne or…Tomas Fleischmann?

Who would you rather see up on the top six right now, Avs fans: Fleischmann or Lindstrom/Kobasew?
It is a clear failure by Avalanche management/ownership not to have recognized better value in what they had and what they tried to get. They tried to get cheap in that case, and they’re getting what they paid for. Hey, I still think Florida overpaid for Fleischmann. But I also think the Avs gave up on him too quickly, and the larger point is: they didn’t adequately address his loss. That’s on Sherman, that’s on Pierre Lacroix and everybody else who gets the big checks in the Avs front office.

Right now, the Avs don’t really have their fallback excuse of last season either: injuries. Yes, Peter Mueller’s absence has been big, and it has played a role in the recent troubles. But it only goes so far. The fact is, the team has been pretty healthy otherwise – and Peter Mueller or no Peter Mueller, the Avs have no excuse for being so inept on home ice, losing to teams playing on back-to-back nights like Edmonton or to a Calgary team that flew all the way in from Buffalo before beating them the other night.

Thursday is going to be a big night at the Pepsi Center. A loss to the Islanders, and it’s going to get really serious.

Video of Sacco’s talk tonight (and I put the wrong date in the video):

DETROIT – OK folks, let’s chat for Avs-Wings tonight. Join me with your questions, comments, observations.

Avs are 1-4-1 in their last six games, while Detroit just snapped a six-game losing streak the other night.

Click on the circling thing below to join the chat:

Adrian Dater

DETROIT – So I get into Detroit today at about 3 o’clock, and decide to take a drive to American Jewelry and Loan, the setting of the reality show “Hardcore Pawn” on TruTv. I’m a sucker for that show and others involving sales haggling, like “Pawn Stars” and “Storage Wars”, etc.
I was hoping the people I recognized from the show would be there, and I got that, and a whole lot more. Would you believe I also ran into former Detroit Red Wing Darren McCarty? It’s true – he works there now.

Honestly, swear on my kid’s head, I had no idea McCarty worked there now. None. But there he was, called out of the back room of the large store after I mentioned to Les Gold, the owner, that I was in town for the Avs-Wings game tomorrow and wrote about hockey. Les said, “Oh, we have Darren McCarty with us now, let me go get him.” If the cameras – which were filming in the store at the time – got my reaction, it should be a doozy. To say I was surprised would be an understatement.

After a couple of minutes, out walked the man himself. You can see what he looks like in the photo above, taken with yours truly.

OK first off: don’t feel sorry for McCarty, or think that he’s fallen on really hard times. I mean, I don’t know too much about his personal finances at the moment and maybe they are tough at the moment. But he’s still doing radio work in the area, and don’t forget that “Hardcore Pawn” is filming shows for their next season. Don’t think for a second that McCarty won’t be featured in some or all of the shows and won’t get some good exposure from it.

But he really is working there. He’s been there a couple of months now.
“This is for real,” McCarty said. “I’m learning the pawnbroker business.”

McCarty wished people in Denver well, said he misses the old Avs-Wings rivalry and said he’s doing well overall. He’s in a steady relationship and maintains good relations with his four kids.

I’ve written this before, and Avs fans haven’t always liked to see it, but McCarty is truly a good guy who played the game with honor and respect. Of course, he’ll always be seen in Denver as a villain over his incident with Claude Lemieux and other stuff, but if he had played for the Avs fans would have loved him – and you know it.

I try not to be obnoxious about plugging a book I wrote about the Avs-Wings rivalry, called “Blood Feud: Detroit Red Wings v. Colorado Avalanche, The Inside Story of Pro Sports’ Nastiest and Best Rivalry of its Era.” But there is a lot on McCarty in there, a chapter devoted to his life in fact, and I’ll always be grateful for his input to the book.

After a few more minutes of chatting, McCarty had to get back to work.

“He’s got to get back in the penalty box,” his new boss cracked.

Here’s me with Les:

Adrian Dater

AAron Ontiveroz, The Denver Post

I feel real sorry for the fans who came out tonight, and there were a lot of you. Nearly 16,000 in the building, a legitimate number, on a Family Pack night. I can’t sit here and say they saw an embarrassing effort by their team, as they outshot the Calgary Flames 33-23 and were robbed a few times by Miiikka Kiprusoff and the Flames got two horrible goals to win 2-1.

But it’s just the same old song isn’t it?

What an aggravating team the Avalanche are for the die-hard local fans. One win and five losses at the Pepsi Center. Six wins, one loss and one OT loss on the road. There is nothing more aggravating than a team that can’t win at home against teams they should beat.

My all-time most frustrating moments as a sports fan (except for the horrific Red Sox losses in 1978 and ’86) were watching the New England Patriots of the late 1970s blow a lot of home games against bad teams. I think back to some of those Chuck Fairbanks-Ron Erhardt coached teams and still get mad. Those Pats teams would win some nice road games and had all kinds of talent, but when it came time to beating someone like the awful Buffalo Bills or the Baltimore Colts in a home game, they’d come out and lay an egg and I’d always want to break something – and often did. I mean, I still remember Joe Ferguson completing just about every pass in games for the Bills, after Buffalo had lost something like six in a row and were given no chance to win but they did, and I still remember Joe Washington returning a kick about 100 yards in the rain to win a game on a Monday night for the Colts).

If I’m a big Avs fan – and I’m not, but I try to think like a fan for job purposes (it’s complicated) – I am furious about what’s going on at the Pepsi Center. It’s just the same thing every time: slow/good start, followed by good/bad response finished by too-little-too-late desperation finish. Aren’t you just SICK and TIRED of this?

This hockey club is 4-18-1 in its last 23 games at the Pepsi Center. That is just….come on man, you can’t do any better than this?

If the answer is no, then some big changes need to happen. I don’t have any evidence that the Avalanche may be thinking of a change at the coaching position, but I have to believe that if a few more losses happen at home, there could be trouble for the security of coach Joe Sacco’s job.

Let’s back up for a second: the Avs are 7-6-1 going into Detroit. They are, technically, a winning team. Do you fire a coach with a winning record? I doubt it – though the Avs did in 2002 with Bob Hartley.

But what if you, Avs fan, were told before the season your road record would be 6-1-1 after eight games? You’d assume the home record would be almost as good, or at least a bit over .500. Instead, you’ve got a 1-5 home team, so it’s just a 7-6-1 record – the definition of mediocrity. The fact the Avs can not take advantage of home ice is, well, it’s infuriating to Avs fans.

I know, I get their emails and tweets all day long.

Tonight, it was the same old song: Avs had a bunch of passengers out there, starting with Chuck Kobasew and including TJ Galiardi, David Jones, Kevin Porter, Jay McClement and…hate to say it, but Milan Hejduk was one too. Erik Johnson doesn’t have a goal yet this season, and Jan Hejda is a minus-11. Do you think, maybe, we can bring Stefan Elliott up from Lake Erie and give EJ a little help on the power play points?

That’s just what the Avs need right now: a puck-moving guy from the point on the PP. Johnson can do some of that, but then he has to pass the puck to the other point and too often it goes to …. Lindstrom, who has been so bad lately he was a healthy scratch.

My game story from tonight centered a lot around the fact the Avs still don’t have a captain. Which begs the question: is there one on this team? Or, is it just a team full of complementary guys? I think, at this point, it’s a fair question.

In the last 23 home games at the Pepsi Center, the Colorado Avalanche was won a grand total of four of them.
That’s really all that needs to be said tonight.

Let’s do it:

Although neither player took part in yesterday’s practice or the morning skate a little while ago at the Pepsi Center, the Avs said centers Ryan O’Reilly and Paul Stastny will be in the lineup tonight against the Cal-Gary Flames. O’Reilly has what sounds like a touch of the flu or something close, while Stastny just took a “maintenance day” yesterday.

Question for tonight is, who is the center on the “second” line tonight? I asked Joe Sacco this morning if TJ Galiardi would again center a line between those of Stastny and O’Reilly, and his response was “I’m not sure yet.” So, we don’t know what that line is going to look like yet.

David Jones is hoping to get ‘er goin’ again. He played only a bit less than 10 minutes in Friday’s wild game in Dallas, and is scuffling a bit right now.
Here is Jones on his recent slump, and on why the team takes a 1-4 home mark into tonight’s tilt:

Here’s the kid, Gabriel Landeskog, on tonight’s game:

Couple other things:
- Peter Mueller skated again today.
- Varlamov is in net

Tonight’s game against the Calgary Flames at the Pepsi Center wraps up “Father’s Weekend” for the Avalanche. The NHL players and their fathers traveled to Dallas on Thursday for Friday’s 7-6 overtime loss against the Stars and have spent the rest of the weekend together in Denver. Unfortunately for 24-year-old defenseman Ryan Wilson, who might be Colorado’s MVP thus far, he is still mourning the loss of his father and stepfather. His father, Gary Wilson, died of a heart attack at age 43 in 2003, and his stepfather, Barry Hall, died of cancer at age 45 in 2008.

Ryan Wilson was 16 and 21, respectively, at the time of those deaths, and has gone from an undrafted free agent to one of the most respected, and perhaps feared, middleweight defenseman in the Western Conference, if not the entire NHL.

“A big hit at the right time can change the momentum of the game, depending on the situation, and that, coupled with the fact that he’s a steady player defensively right now, makes him a very important player for us,” Avs coach Joe Sacco said. “Last year, when you look at the second half when we were going through a tough time during that stretch, he was by-far our plus-minus leader. That’s consistent. There’s something with that.”

In today’s paper and online editions, I wrote about Wilson’s family losses and blossoming NHL career — he leads the Avs with a plus-8 rating and is tied for third in the league in that department — plus his relationship with Steven Stamkos and other interesting stuff about the hard-hitting D-man from Windsor, Ontario. For instance, Wilson’s defensive coach for the Sarnia Sting of the Ontario Hockey League was Greg Walters, who played with Sacco in the Toronto Maple Leafs organization. Walters said he and Sacco are good buddies, so Sacco knew a little bit about Wilson when he was traded from the Flames to the Avs in the 2009 trade-deadline deal that made Jordan Leopold a Flame.

Wilson’s tenure with the Avs coincides with Sacco’s, and Wilson briefly played for Sacco for Colorado’s AHL affiliate in Lake Erie after the trade. Wilson is in his third season with the Avs, same as Sacco.

“I didn’t have the opportunity to really measure him up, as far as what type of player he was, because he only played a few games (because of a knee injury),” Sacco said of Wilson when the two were together in Lake Erie. “The following year, when I came (to Colorado), he got an opportunity and ran with it. He’s resilient. He’s worked hard. I think those type of players that aren’t drafted feel like they always have something to prove.”

Let’s look at how Wilson got here. Here is a chart from today’s paper:

The 2009 trade-deadline deal that sent prized Avalanche two-way defenseman Jordan Leopold to the Calgary Flames for two undrafted defensemen and a 2009 second-round draft pick didn’t look so good at the time. Today and beyond, however, it could benefit the Avalanche for years to come. A look at the trade:

The Flames received:
Leopold – At age 31, he remains a top-four NHL D-man, now in his second season with the Buffalo Sabres, his fifth team. Has 228 career points (54 goals) in 519 games.

The Avs received:
D Ryan Wilson – Leads the Avs with a plus-8 rating (tied for third in the NHL) and is tied for fourth in scoring with eight points (seven assists) in 13 games
D Lawrence Nycholat – Played just five games with Avs in 2009, his last stint in the NHL, and is currently playing in Germany.

D Stefan Elliott (the 2009 second-round draft pick) The skilled 20-year-old is in the grooming stages of a sure-fire NHL career, receiving maximum minutes for the AHL’s Lake Erie Monsters and preparing to make his NHL debut this season.

Keep tabs with Mike Chambers on Twitter:

Yahoo!

My guest this week on podcast of “Hockey Talk” is Greg Wyshynski, the editor of the wildly popular hockey blog “Puck Daddy” on Yahoo!

We talked for more than an hour, in a wide-ranging discussion, including about Greg’s career path, how Puck Daddy came into being, today’s sports media world (and journalism in general) and how it has greatly changed in recent years, and a cornucopia of current NHL topics including the most surprising team, Sidney Crosby’s impending return and much, much more.

Greg is a good guy. We’ve had a couple of Twitter feuds before and disagreements in the past, probably owing to both of us being kind of Type A people, but the world would be a dull place if everybody always got along, and it’s no big deal. He’s a good writer, but what really astonishes me about the guy is how well-spoken he is. I mean, I stumble over words a lot and say “Umm” and “Uhh”, but words just roll right off the guy’s tongue like he’s been rehearsing the sentence his whole life. It’s unreal. In the podcast, Greg talks about how he was offered TV gigs over the summer – but turned them down because…well, I don’t want to give it away.

A couple of things about the podcast:
- The last minute or so of our talk got cut off, because of a technical difficulty. I mean, the thing just cuts right off mid-sentence and that’s it. Show’s over at that point, folks. All you missed was a final thought about HBO’s coming Winter Classic special about the Rangers and Flyers, and how we both are anticipating it greatly, and me thanking him for taking time from his busy schedule to come on and me signing off and thanking you for listening. So, sorry about that. I need to get a Sim card with more memory for this fandangled new digital recorder.

Oh, and my sinuses were a little clogged today. At times you can hear some heavy breathing. Sorry about that. Now you know how my old girlfriends felt when the talked to me on the phone.

- While I would say the audio quality is good throughout the podcast, there are a couple of times – especially in the first six minutes or so, when the recording of Greg’s voice is a little low. You can hear him though. Just turn up the volume for a second and you’ll be fine. Also, my voice is TOO LOUD a couple of times. I taped the thing over the phone, so our voices are a little uneven in strength. At times, very uneven. I’m still getting the hang of this podcast stuff. I do it all myself, so there is still a learning curve. There is no fancy studio producer helping me out.

Thanks for listening, and here it is. It will be available on iTunes shortly too.

The podcast can also be downloaded on iTunes by clicking here.

Getty Images

The Avalanche is practicing right now after returning to Denver early this morning from its 7-6 overtime loss at Dallas on Friday night. Winger Peter Mueller is participating in all drills and not wearing an orange no-contact sweater. That’s good news for Mueller, whose concussion or “head” injuries have limited him to 18 games over three seasons in Colorado. He played in the first three games this season before feeling ill, and just recently began skating on his own.

Meanwhile, the workout beast that is center Ryan O’Reilly — a k a Factor — is not skating, in addition to center Paul Stastny. Stastny is probably taking the day off. But O’Reilly must have some sort of injury or sickness bug, otherwise he would be out there. We will have updates later after talking to coach Joe Sacco at www.denverpost.com/sports.

Read more of Mike Chambers at the All Things DU Pioneers blog.

Keep tabs with Mike Chambers on Twitter: @MChambersDP

One of the all-time strangest games tonight in Dallas. Avs lose 7-6 in overtime to the Stars, a game in which they led 2-0, trailed 4-2, led 5-4, led 6-5 and lost in the OT – in front of a terrible crowd at American Airlines Center. That NBA lockout is really helping teams like the Stars, eh?

Matt Duchene’s third goal of the night was the highlight-reel marker of the year so far. He had a great offensive game, and could have had a fourth goal early in OT. He was a little loose on the tying goal by Dallas with four minutes left in regulation that made it 6-6, but Semyon Varlamov never could give the Avs a big save tonight.

Despite all the goals, the Avs got nothing from the second line tonight, or whatever number you want to give that line. TJ Galiardi, David Jones and Joakim Lindstrom got nothing, and Jones appears to be in coach Joe Sacco’s doghouse now.

Jones played just 6:48 in a 64-minute game with no shots on goal. Lindstrom played 10:16 with no shots. Galiardi had one shot. The Avs continue to get nothing from the second line – or whatever you want to call it.

Yahoo!

My guest this week on podcast of “Hockey Talk” is Greg Wyshynski, the editor of the wildly popular hockey blog “Puck Daddy” on Yahoo!

We talked for more than an hour, in a wide-ranging discussion, including about Greg’s career path, how Puck Daddy came into being, today’s sports media world (and journalism in general) and how it has greatly changed in recent years, and a cornucopia of current NHL topics including the most surprising team, Sidney Crosby’s impending return and much, much more.

Greg is a good guy. We’ve had a couple of Twitter feuds before and disagreements in the past, probably owing to both of us being kind of Type A people, but the world would be a dull place if everybody always got along, and it’s no big deal. He’s a good writer, but what really astonishes me about the guy is how well-spoken he is. I mean, I stumble over words a lot and say “Umm” and “Uhh”, but words just roll right off the guy’s tongue like he’s been rehearsing the sentence his whole life. It’s unreal. In the podcast, Greg talks about how he was offered TV gigs over the summer – but turned them down because…well, I don’t want to give it away.

A couple of things about the podcast:
- The last minute or so of our talk got cut off, because of a technical difficulty. I mean, the thing just cuts right off mid-sentence and that’s it. Show’s over at that point, folks. All you missed was a final thought about HBO’s coming Winter Classic special about the Rangers and Flyers, and how we both are anticipating it greatly, and me thanking him for taking time from his busy schedule to come on and me signing off and thanking you for listening. So, sorry about that. I need to get a Sim card with more memory for this fandangled new digital recorder.

Oh, and my sinuses were a little clogged today. At times you can hear some heavy breathing. Sorry about that. Now you know how my old girlfriends felt when the talked to me on the phone.

- While I would say the audio quality is good throughout the podcast, there are a couple of times – especially in the first six minutes or so, when the recording of Greg’s voice is a little low. You can hear him though. Just turn up the volume for a second and you’ll be fine. Also, my voice is TOO LOUD a couple of times. I taped the thing over the phone, so our voices are a little uneven in strength. At times, very uneven. I’m still getting the hang of this podcast stuff. I do it all myself, so there is still a learning curve. There is no fancy studio producer helping me out.

Thanks for listening, and here it is. It will be available on iTunes shortly too.

What should we call this line? My nomination: The “Eggs All in One Basket” line.
I kid. We all know what the best line has been with the Avalanche this season, and it’s the OWL Line – O’Reily-Winnik-Landeskog. OK I hate that name too. But I saw it somewhere, and some Avs fans are going with it. Generally, acronym-named lines just don’t work. But people strain for one all the time. “Hey, one guy has the first name beginning with P, another has the last name of E and the other has a middle name of T. Let’s call it the PET Line!”

The best line names combine geography, heritage and character of the players. “The French Connection” is my all-time favorite, which all of you of course now is the 1970s Buffalo Sabres trio of Rick Martin, Gilbert Perreault and Rene Robert. (As an aside, you want to really get Avs analyst Peter McNab talking in reverent tones? Ask him about what kind of skill Perreault had. He played with the Sabres, with Perreault. (And now that I’m referencing McNab and former Sabres teammates, you might like to read this story about Canadian icon Tim Horton, with some good stuff about McNab’s memories of playing with him in Buffalo. A lot of people know his name only because of the world-famous coffee and donut shops, but he was a great hockey player).

Now that I’m in parenthetical mode (someone stole poppy boxes at a couple of Tim Horton’s in Ontario today. What is the world coming to?).

About line names: French Connection was the best, IMO. I also love the “Production Line” of Gordie Howe, Ted Lindsay and Sid Abel, in keeping with the Motown automobile heritage. There has never really been a great line name with the Avalanche. Most have been failed attempts at acronyms.

Other great line names: The “Triple Crown” line of Marcel Dionne, Dave Taylor and Charlie Simmer in Los Angeles. “Hull and Oates” – OK, just two names, but still. The “Party Line” in Chicago of the 1980s – Denis Savard, Steve Larmer and Al Secord. And…that’s about it. Almost all the other line names are forgotten and never were very good. I never liked “Legion of Doom” for the Lindros-LeClair-Renberg line with Philly in the ’90s. (First off, “legion” is defined as a “large military unit, trained for combat” and “the majority of the Roman army, consisting of 3,000-6,000 troops. Besides, nobody ever knew about Mikael Renberg. It was only the other two guys).

So what do well call the Duchene-Stastny-Hejduk line?

(Video above is of the three skating at practice today, in the white jerseys).

coloradoavalanche.com

Looks like Joe Sacco has decided to move Matt Duchene to left wing.
That’s where No. 9 is skating today at practice, on a new line with Paul Stastny at center and Milan Hejduk on the right side.
The other “top line” is now Lindstrom-Galiardi-Jones.
Landeskog-O’Reilly-Winnik remains intact.

More on this later…

Karl Gehring, The Denver Post

I know a few of you probably have come here to watch me take this team to the woodshed. Yeah, there will be a little of that, but really I didn’t think the Avs were all that bad today really. I saw a team that put 40 shots on net, hit a couple of posts and skated pretty hard I thought. So I feel it’s a little hard to sit here and bash the whole team tonight, despite yet another home loss.

The people I will single out are Erik Johnson and Paul Stastny. Those two guys, arguably, are this team’s two most depended upon players. Stastny is the top center, the top-paid guy on the team. Johnson is the former No. 1 pick whom the team gave up a lot to get. But so far, neither guy has a single point at home this season, in five games. That’s why this is going so badly at home. Your top guys win or lose you games more often than not.

Johnson was very mad at himself tonight, as this video shows:

At least Johnson admitted his performance was unacceptable. He cares and he works hard. But the fact is, he knows it’s got to be better. He’s got zero goals in his first 12 games and a minus-8. It’s just got to be more productive, period.

About Stastny: he’s been blanked in every single home game so far. He’s making $6.6 million per year. He knows it, we all know it: he’s got to to better.

Matt Duchene scored that big goal Sunday against the Kings, but tonight he was back to zeroes on the score sheet.

These are your TOP guys. These are the guys who MUST produce. They are paid to produce. So while I could just sit here and bash them, that’s not going to accomplish anything. They must be better. How that happens? That’s up to them and the coaching staff.

Joe Sacco was not happy with the boys tonight, not at all. He said the team was too “light” around the net on the tough pucks, that they just aren’t bearing down hard enough. But he also is tired of his team turning pucks over in the offensive and neutral zone, leading to a keystone kop situation going the other way.
Sacco can be seen here venting some frustration:

Here is how Coyotes coach Dave Tippett saw the game:

Join me for Avs-Coyotes chat. I’m your host, Adrian Dater. You and me together are already rivaling the crowd on hand here for this one at the Pepsi Center. So let’s get started.
Avs come in at 7-4-0, Coyotes at 5-3-2. It’s never an easy game against Phoenix. Good coach in Dave Tippett, lots of good solid veteran players, Shane Doan among them.
Same lineup for Avs as last game, with Semyon Varlamov in net.