DETROIT – Joe Louis himself would have been ashamed.
In the building named after the great boxer, in the building where so many previous Colorado Avalanche teams battled to the last, bloody second, the current version of the Avs went out with a feeble whimper in their final game ever at Joe Louis Arena. The Detroit Red Wings, on the strength of four straight third-period goals, crushed the Avs 5-1 Saturday afternoon before a lively crowd.
A victory may not have been realistically expected, but a little more fight, literally and/or figuratively, should have easy enough to muster in the building of so many past wars on ice.