Avs/Sharks recap

http://www.denverpost.com/avalanche/ci_17516621

This is a fairly good recap of the Avs 2-1 shootout loss to the San Jose Sharks. Dater wisely avoids any attempt at a clever intro, and gives a good and direct overview of the game.

I have one criticism, however: when a player as talented as Joe Thornton tips a pass into the net, I have a really hard time believing it was a "most fortunate" deflection. Sure, Elliot is going to call it a lucky bounce, but I have little doubt that Thornton knew exactly what he was doing. It was a nice play by a veteran guy.

Now, if Dater had interviewed Thornton, and he'd said "yeah, we got lucky there," then OK. But this is just Dater thinking it was pure luck, and I don't buy it.

Dater had this to say about the Avalanche defensively:

For the first time in a long time, the Avs weren't all spaced out from each other defensively. Too many times in this losing funk, there were wide-open spaces for skaters to make decisions with the puck, especially coming into their zone across the blue line.

Every time Dater writes something so perfectly cromulent about the way the game is played, I have to wonder if he overheard it from the next reporter over, or somebody in the bathroom, or something. I have a hard time believing that this is truly Dater's own observation, because it reveals an understanding of the way the game is played that is almost completely absent from his coverage. So when it shows up, it stands out, and I just find it hard to believe he didn't just grab somebody else's thought and call it his own.

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