Avalanche At Canucks Preview: Hour Of Reprisal

Time	Sunday 5:00 PST	TV	Sportsnet Pacific
Season Series	2012/13: 3-1 Canucks	Last Meeting	4-3 Avalanche Apr. 13/13
The Enemy	Mile High Hockey	Scoring Leaders	H. Sedin: 8-21-29 Landeskog: 9-13-22

AVALANCHE	CATEGORY	CANUCKS
20-7-0	SEASON RECORD	16-10-5
40	POINTS	37
6th	CONFERENCE POSITION	9th
Won 1	STREAK	Won 3
6-4-0	LAST 10	5-3-2
10-3-0	ROAD RECORD / HOME RECORD	6-5-3
2.96 (7)	GOALS PER GAME AVERAGE	2.64 (16)
2.30 (6)	GOALS AGAINST PER GAME AVERAGE	2.48 (12)
1.41 (2)	5 ON 5 GF / GA	1.02 (17)
15.8 (20)	POWER PLAY %	14.8 (25)
81.0 (20)	PENALTY KILL %	89.2 (1)
29.5 (17)	SHOTS/GAME AVG	32.8 (4)
48.9 (20)	FACEOFF WINS %	50.8  (14)
672 (17)	HITS	595 (22)
414 (13)	BLOCKED SHOTS	465 (8)
95 (2)	MINOR PENALTIES TAKEN	115 (20)
NHL.COM

KNOW YOUR ENEMY

As you can see above, a few stats really stick out for the Avalanche. 2nd in the NHL 5 on 5. They've knocked their goals against down dramatically compared to the past few years. They don't take very many penalties. Oh, and that 10-3-0 road record is superb. The Canucks have their work cut out for them. But the Canucks have to keep winning regardless. They are not in a playoff spot yet. In fact, they have barely made any ground for quite some time now. It's like that 9th spot feels nice and cozy or something....****!

One of the Canucks' biggest issues lately is holding on to leads. That needs to be remedied. Now.

PROJECTED AVALANCHE ROSTER

O'Reilly - Stastny - Parenteau

Landeskog - Duchene - MacKinnon

McGinn - Mitchell - Talbot (sweet addition)

Bordeleau - Marc-Andre Cliche - McLeod

Guenin - Johnson

Barrie - Holden (magroin)

Sarich - Benoit

Giguere

Injured: Alex Tanguay, Jan Hejda, Ryan Wilson

TOP 5 AVS SCORERS

1. Landeskog: 9-13-22

2. Duchene: 12-9-21

3. Parenteau: 9-9-18

4. Stastny: 8-9-17

5. O'Reilly: 9-8-17

The Avalanche have a fair bit of scoring depth going on. It is going to cause the Canucks problems I am sure.

The Avs have won 6 of their last 8, but I just don't understand the 8-2 beating they took at the hands of the Oilers a couple games ago. Quite the anomaly for this year's team. This is not the Avs of recent years. A new coach in Patrick Roy and a newfound attitude. Impressive. Squash these bastards!

YOU MADE MY SHITLIST

Nobody after 3 straight wins. As a side note though, is that Sedins-Booth line painful to watch? Or is it just me? It looks a bit awkward to me, but I really want it to work out.

TRENDS

• Avalanche are 6-1 in their last 7 vs. Pacific.
• Avalanche are 5-1 in their last 6 vs. a team with a winning record.
• Avalanche are 4-1 in their last 5 road games.
• Avalanche are 4-1 in their last 5 Sunday games.
• Avalanche are 15-5 in their last 20 games following a win.
• Avalanche are 12-4 in their last 16 vs. Western Conference.
• Canucks are 20-6 in their last 26 home games vs. a team with a road winning % of greater than .600.
• Canucks are 7-3 in their last 10 vs. Central.
• Canucks are 2-5 in their last 7 games following a win.
• Canucks are 2-5 in their last 7 home games.
• Canucks are 3-13 in their last 16 Sunday games. DEAR GOD NO!!!
  

SCORE-PREDICTING WIZARDS UPDATE

Updated HERE.

THE LAST MEETING:

Ooooo that stings.

The title of this game preview post has been brought to you by Slayer..in church!

GO CANUCKS GO!