After winning the draft lottery in 2013 and earning the right to pick Nathan MacKinnon first overall that year, the Colorado Avalanche were somewhere in the middle or at the end of their rebuild. With good, young players, notably Matt Duchene, Gabriel Landeskog, Ryan O’Reilly, Paul Stastny, Erik Johnson and Semyon Varlamov and others adding a MacKinnon was a huge bonus.
There was also a buzz around the team from the hiring of former Avalanche star players into the management side. Joe Sakic was hired as the General Manager who soon hired one of the best goaltenders of all time Patrick Roy to be head coach.
Even with all the buzz and excitement, I don’t think anyone saw what was about to come. Jumping out to a 10-1-0 record that October. Winning fourteen of their first fifteen games a stretch that included two six game winning streaks. Being able to keep the pace with their division foes throughout the season and as the St. Louis Blues faltered at the end of the season the Avalanche pounced. Losing just one game in regulation in their last eleven games going 8-1-2 Colorado won the central division. The division that included two Stanley Cup favorites saw the Avalanche sneak in and win it.
A somewhat disappointing playoff season ended early losing in the first round in seven games to division rival Minnesota Wild. Still the future looked very bright. Matt Duchene continued to grow into a great player, the young Captain Gabriel Landeskog was turning into the leader contending teams need and Nathan MacKinnon had an outstanding rookie year capitalized by his ten points in his first seven playoff games. Things were looking great in Colorado.
That off-season looked great, good young team and the management added veterans to compliment the young players. Jerome Iginla, Danny Briere, Brad Stuart key players who had won Stanley Cups or who had been key players in teams that had gone far in the playoffs in years past. The only downside to the off-season was the loss of Paul Stastny to the St. Louis Blues. It seemed inevitable, the Avalanche could not get him resigned and Paul’s dad Peter played for the Blues and Paul spending his childhood in the area.
Still the Avalanche were expected to make the playoffs, the team had plenty of talent and the young players were expected to get even better. Long story short, the Avs didn’t have the season they wanted. Unlike the blazing start in 2013, they sputtered to a start in 2014 going 1-4-2 in their first seven games and 3-4-4 in total in the month of October.
The rest of the season was fairly average in terms of the win/loss record. Winning a couple of games straight then losing a couple of games in a row. All this happening while their division opponents were pulling away making the Avalanche task of making the playoffs harder with every passing week.
Colorado missed the playoffs, putting a halt to the excitement of the Avalanche fans. What was the difference? Someone who has watched every game and every minute would be able to answer that better than me but there are obvious hints in the stats. Even during the success of the 13-14 season it was clear the Avalanche had some issues. Corsi and Fenwick % as a team weren’t good. Being in the bottom five in the league in both didn’t scream postseason success. In comparison, possibly the two best teams that year, LA and Chicago were number one and two in Corsi respectively.
This year it was much of the same. Only being able to average 27.9 shots on goal a game while allowing 33.2 shots per game. The Avalanche were getting away with it mostly on offense last season. Averaging 2.99 goals a game last season while still allowing 2.63 goals against. That goals against number isn’t bad, but it certainly isn’t good. This season the Avs took a step back in both departments, 2.55 goals for and 2.72 goals against.
One can only guess why the offense went down with the firepower the team has but you have to look at the powerplay. At 19.8% the season before the Avalanche powerplay was something to be feard. This season was a different story, just 15% on the powerplay this season definitely led to less offense. Oddly enough however, the team allowed more goals this season while improving on the penalty kill. A top five penalty kill didn’t seem to help the goals against.
Clearly this team needs to figure out how to defend. Allowing thirty-two plus shots a game is not going to get wins, even if the shots are from the outside, these days in the NHL shots can sneak in with all the traffic in front of the goal.
The offense will be fine, Even coming off “down seasons” by their standards, Duchene, Landeskog, MacKinnon will lead the charge and get their offense. Losing Ryan O’Reilly in an off-season trade will hurt but it seemed to be rather clear he didn’t want to be in Colorado unless he was making big money which the Avalanche didn’t offer. O’Reilly along with Jamie McGinn was shipped to the Buffalo Sabres in return for Nikita Zadorv, a young promising defenseman, Mikhail Grigorenko, another young player struggling to find his NHL game but has connections to Avalanche head coach Roy, and J.T. Compher current captain of the Michigan Wolverines hockey team. None of these players are projected to replace the production O’Reilly would bring but if things go right for Grigorenko it could be a very good trade and Zadorov could be a stud defenseman one day.
A nice add from free agency was a cap casualty from Boston Carl Soderberg. Soderberg could and should be a key depth player having two forty point seasons in his first two NHL years. At the very least he should take some pressure off of the top guys and contribute. Francois Beauchemin was also added via free agency giving the defense a nice veteran presence. Beauchemin has won a Stanley Cup, gone on playoff runs and can contribute some from the back end. It was probably an under the radar signing, but a good one. Even at age thirty-five, Beauchemin should still have some gas to finish that three year contract he received. The Avalanche also added Blake Comeau, another depth signing hoping to take pressure off the big guys hoping with the high powered offense he can get fifteen plus goals.
Prospect pool isn’t very deep but the team does have plenty of goalies, and some bigger names like Mikko Rantanen, Connor Bleakley, Chris Bigras and J.T. Compher. Rantanen could be the most ready guy but hopefully the Avalanche don’t need him or any of their prospects to much.
Offense and goaltending won’t be a problem for this team. If they can find a way to improve the defense, limit the shots against and the chances against it will be a good year for them. But if the defense continues to be an issue it could be another long season for the Colorado Avalanche.
