San Jose Sharks vs Colorado Avalanche Live

Without any doubts, the San Jose Sharks’ undisputed goal for this year’s NHL season is to finally win the Stanley Cup. Even though they were the best team in the league during the regular season last year, the team around future Hall of Famer Rob Blake was unable to make it out of the first playoff-round in 2008-09. However, with recently acquired All-Star Dany Heatley on board, the Sharks will be a very tough opponent for the struggling Colorado Avalanche in their season opener on Friday at 1 a.m. GMT.

While there was very little argument about the talent of San Jose’s hockey team last year, they once again failed to perform in the post-season. Although the franchise lost Jeremy Roenick and Travis Moen during the off-season, they will be even more dangerous this year. Most importantly, GM Doug Wilson was able to pull off a blockbuster trade with the Ottawa Senators which landed All-Star Dany Heatley in California in exchange for Milan Michalek and Jonathan Cheechoo. Heatley will be joined by fellow All-Stars Rob Blake, Patrick Marleau and Evgeni Nabokov.

Colorado on the other hand has much more significant issues to deal with than the San Jose Sharks. After missing the playoffs once again in 2008-09, the franchise appears to be dedicated to rebuild from scratch. Thus, they fired head coach Tony Granato and General Manager Francois Giguere a long with most of their coaching staff. Heading into the new season, the franchise focused on acquiring young talent through the draft and signed center Matt Duchene with their third overall pick. However, their problems are going to be even bigger this year since multiple All-Star and franchise centerpiece Joe Sakic retired in July.

Taking everything into consideration, anything else than a one-sided match in favor of the Sharks would be a huge surprise. Rebuilding a team usually takes time, thus the Avalanche will have a very hard time keeping up with a Stanley Cup contender like San Jose. Especially the Sharks’ dynamic offense, now also featuring Dany Heatley, looks like a tough challenge to overcome. Nonetheless, the Avalanche can be expected to leave it all on the ice to prevent a loss in their 2009-10 home opener.

You can watch all games of the San Jose Sharks and Colorado Avalanche right here on www.watchlivenhl.com, the home of NHL live streaming.