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Apparently the trick to making good time getting to work is to be ready to leave too early. It's twenty till eight, and i've been here long enough already to have set up voicemail on the new office phone system and to have read all e-mail which came in from the time i left yesterday. I think the trip in took all of twenty minutes.

In Memoriam: 2005-2006 Colorado Avalanche (9th of 15)

Goaltending and special teams doomed the Colorado Avalanche in their second round series against the Anaheim Mighty Ducks.

As solid as Avs' goalie Jose Theodore was in the series against the Dallas Stars he returned to the form he showed during much of this season in the Avs' four game ouster at the hands of the Ducks. Theodore's inability to control rebounds led to Anaheim forwards capitalizing on loose pucks in the slot and all-but-empty nets.

The problem shouldn't be laid solely at the feet of Theodore. When it came to Colorado scoring, the team should have just declined Anaheim penalties, as the team went 0-for-24 in the series, and have a playoff skein of thirty-three successive manpower advantages without a tally. Defensively, a lot of the culpability could be loaded on the shoulders of Patrice Brisebois, who had a simply execrable series, and who blew assignments leading to four of the last five Ducks scores. With Brisebois due to make two and a quarter million for the '06-'07, look for the Avs to potentially shop him around for a cheaper top-four blueline.