From the Stands: Salvas Jinx Does in Avs vs. Devils

A recap of my mid-week trip to Denver for Wednesday's game and The Boss.

After months of planning, tweaking those plans and talking about those plans, our trip to Denver was finally here.

With snow expected in the forecast in the northeast for Tuesday morning, my father-in-law and I moved up our trip by a day and flew out here from Boston on Monday afternoon.

I bought the wifi on the flight so I could listen to the Avs/Golden Knights game while we were in the air. It was only the fourth game in the last three seasons I hadn’t been able to watch, but listening to it on the radio with Conor McGahey was something I had been used to doing before ESPN+ and illegal streaming.

At the end of the game — a 3-0 win — I took off my headphones and looked at my travel partner, Steve, and said, “We’re going to lose on Wednesday.”

They had too many good games recently. They had used up all the winning and goal scoring and excitement. Then I saw they’re starting Justus Annunen. I was right. This game felt like a punt. 

If you guys think the Dater Jinx is real, let me tell you… the Salvas Jinx is VERY real. But instead of saying things into existence on Twitter, I just show up to an Avs game and the team forgets how to play hockey. A pair of embarrassing 5-1 losses in Boston the last two seasons and then last night. When it was 5-1 New Jersey in the second period, I wondered, “Is it me? Do I bring the ‘suck’ with me?”

The answer to that is ‘no.’ Last night’s 7-5 loss was due to terrible defensive zone coverage, not-quite NHL goaltending and terrible zone exits amongst other things. Not me (I hope).

In the end, it was a great and entertaining game to be at. From down 3-0 in the first and 5-1 in the second to nearly tying the game on a shot that hit the post, the only thing missing (besides several all-star caliber players) was a win. We’ll look back on the game and this trip in general and only remember that we had a great time. The hope is we won’t remember how bad the Avs were  in our own zone or the number of mistakes that led to turnovers.

This was only my second ever Avs game in Denver as seeing them on east-coast swings is a tad more cost effective for me. I went to a game against the Panthers in December 2017, a 2-1 win, just five weeks after my son was born. In both that game and the one last night against the Devils, Nathan MacKinnon has scored a pair of goals. If I were a season ticket holder, my guess is Nate Dogg would hit 100 goals in a season. Something to think about…

We had great seats in section 106, but were surrounded by a ton of Devils fans. I was shocked to see them travel so well considering how empty the Prudential Center had been the last few years. But the team was bad and even great franchises fight attendance woes during down seasons.