Giguere rips Avalanche teammates … Sacco may not be the problem

“As long as we don’t understand that we have to play better in our zone, we’ll never win any games. We have to do a better job in our own zone. That’s where it starts. We have to learn this at some point.”

…. then continued:

“The (allowing) the first goal is one part of it (problems), but I think it comes down to us not playing very well defensively. We spend too much time in our own zone, and that’s hard. That’s where it’s hard. We know we can score some goals, we have some offensive tools. But when you spend part of the second period in your zone and give up too many scoring chances, you’re not going to win games like that.

“We talk about it every day. At some point, we have to understand. There’s no more excuses. It’s not about being young, it’s not about … we have to put our head into the game.”

…. before adding

“Some guys are more worried about their Vegas trip at the end of the season than playing the games, than playing every minute of the games. Quite frankly, I don’t care about your Vegas trip right now.”

A few more of Giguere’s quotes can be read in Dater’s piece.

“I don’t think their problem is coaching at all,” McGuire said. “I think Joe Sacco has them very well prepared every night and I like their systems of pushing the puck. The coach doesn’t get to pick the players, he has to make do with the players picked for him.”

The problem with the team may be,

“The problem as I see it this year is organizational depth at defense. They’re a lot like Edmonton right now. They’ve got some great young talent up front, but a lack of depth on defense. And unless you’re getting brilliant goaltending every night from Semyon Varlamov or J.S. Giguere, you’re going to have a real hard time keeping scores down.”