Craig Anderson injured again as the Colorado Avalanche lose to the Vancouver Canucks
Colorado Avalanche goaltender Craig Anderson lasted only 80 minutes after returning from a knee injury before he was forced to leave Wednesday 24 November's game against the Vancouver Canucks at the end
of the first period with a groin injury. The Avalanche went on to lose the game by a score of 4-2.
How it happened
Canucks defenceman Kevin Bieksa got the only goal of the first period with his first of the season to put Vancouver up 1-0.
Avalanche defenceman John-Michael Liles, who continues to impress this season as the leading scorer among NHL defenceman, scored his fourth of the season while Colorado were on the power play to tie the
game at 1-1. Daniel Sedin responded with his 13th of the season to put the Canucks up 2-1 going into the third.
Ryan Kesler scored his 10th of the season, and 100th of his NHL career, at 3:52 of the third period, and that goal proved to be the winner. Matt Duchene pulled the Avalanche to within one with his fourth
of the season before Alexandre Burrows restored the Canucks two-goal cushion with his second of the year.
What they're saying
Peter Budaj came in to replace Anderson after the latter left the game injured and Avalanche head coach Joe Sacco also lost one of his top defencemen when Adam Foote left the game with
a leg injury.
"I think Peter (Budaj) came in and played fine. I don't think there was any issue there," Sacco told reporters when asked to share his thoughts about the game. "We didn't play our game, though. That was
the bottom line. Our game is skating, our game is forechecking, and when we did do that, we had some success."
Kesler was quick to down play the importance of his milestone goal which was also the game winner. "It's not that big of a deal," he said. "It's 100, obviously it's a nice milestone, but it's all from
hard work, my line has been working really hard and it's good to get a greasy one like that."
The Canucks will be happy to have finally got a win after going winless in their four previous games. The win also moves them into a tie with the Avalanche for first place in the Northwest Division. They
get set to host the San Jose Sharks on Friday 26 November.
The Canucks also snapped the Avalanche's four-game win streak. Colorado play on back-to-back nights as they head to Edmonton to take on the Oilers on Thursday night.
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