Most analysts, including myself, called for a long, hard fought series against the Colorado Avalanche and the Detroit Red Wings. Well, a hard fought first round against the Wild seems to be taking its toll on the Avalanche, causing a major meltdown. What happened? Peter Forsberg, Wojtek Wolski, and Scott Hannan are all out for the Avalanche with no definite return in sight. Couple that with goalie Jose Theodore’s early exit in both games 1 and 2 against the Red Wings, and you have a commanding 2-0 lead by Detroit in the semifinal series.

While the Avalanche were able to battle back from a 3 goal deficit in game 1 to lose 4-3, Johan Franzen and the Wings absolutely destroyed the Avalanche in game 2 with a 5-1 tally. Peter Budaj played in relief of Theodore in both of the games and played beautifully, allowing only one goal in the 20 shots he’s faced so far. Theodore is blaming is almost abrupt turnaround in performance on the flu and has assured the media he will be ready for game 3. But, what will Avalanche coach Joel Quenneville decide?

We’ve seen a successful switch of netminders by Detroit after Dominik Hasek’s meltdown against the Nashville Predators. Relief goalie Chris Osgood shut down the Predators and is showing the same talent against the Avalanche after taking over, posting an impressive 1.09 GAA so far this postseason. Should Coach Q take that same road and make a switch in net to try and send a message and grab some momentum back from the Red Wings?

Many would say no; the Avalanche have much deeper problems than goaltending. Barring any catastrophic injury we don’t know about yet, expect Forsberg to return on Tuesday. His return should revitalize Sakic and more than make up for the absence of Wolski. The lack of Hannan on defense is also a huge issue for the team, and other clutch players like Adam Foote and John-Michael Liles need to start picking up the slack. Most importantly, unless Colorado can look back and start playing the disciplined game that won them the first round, the Red Wings power play will be their downfall. As long as they use the first two games as a drive to start winning as they did against Detroit in 1999 (winning 4 straight after a 2-0 deficit), this will be the long, bitter, exciting series between two old rivals that everyone was expecting.