Wanna blog? Start your own hockey blog with My HockeyBuzz. Register for free today!
 

Consistently disappointing Avs need a major shakeup to their snow globe

December 1, 2016, 9:02 PM ET [14 Comments]
Adam Proteau
Blogger •NHL Columnist • RSSArchiveCONTACT
It isn’t just that the Colorado Avalanche are stumbling, once again, out of the gate once again that’s making this season so bewildering and agonizing for their fans. This time around, it’s the knowledge that we’ve seen this routine many times before – combined with the staggering abilities of a number of individuals on the Avs’ roster – that make this particular squad more frustrating than at just about any point since the organization relocated to Denver from Quebec City in 1995.

Last season, Colorado began the year with just three wins in October and a 9-14-1 mark by November’s end, essentially destroying their shot at making the playoffs before a third of the season had been completed. The year prior, the Avalanche won just three times in October and finished the following month with a 9-10-5 record, also hamstringing them and all but ensuring they wouldn’t qualify for the post-season.

And this year? This year, the Avs won four games out of seven in October, and after losing four of their past six games, they’ve closed the book on November with a 9-11-1 mark and currently sit tied with Arizona for the NHL’s worst record. Yes, they’re only six points behind the L.A. Kings for the final wild-card berth in the Western Conference with two games in hand, but they’ve also got four teams ahead of them in that pursuit, and haven’t won more than two games in a row this season. They’ve got the league’s second-worst offense (at an average of 2.24 goals-for per game), 22nd-worst defense (2.95 goals-against per game), and fourth-worst penalty-kill (78.3 percent). With blip-on-the-radar exceptions in 2014 and 2010, they’ve been out of the playoffs in six of the past eight years, and barring an unexpected turnaround, they almost certainly will be on the outside looking in when the Stanley Cup tournament begins in April.

This, from a team that has a $72-million payroll, a new head coach in Jared Bednar, and a slew of young talent other GMs would kill for. What has become normal in Colorado is an annual cycle of disappointment, retooling and various tinkering, failed promises and empty what-ifs. And for a franchise that was one of the NHL’s measuring sticks for success in its first seven years of existence, this is inexcusable.

If there was debate before (and there absolutely should've been) about the team's future, this season's results should end it, and there should be no more patience with the Avs' core. And that’s not a condemnation of any one player on the roster. Sometimes – as we saw in Edmonton for a good decade prior to this year – the mix simply isn’t right, and change is the sole solution guaranteed to stir the players who remain in town once the dust has settled.

I think we’re at that point in Colorado.

In fairness, change can lead to terrible deals like the ones many Oilers fans believe GM Peter Chiarelli made this summer in breaking up his team’s foundation of talent. But the inertia that had permeated Edmonton before Chiarelli took over was, in many ways, worse than what followed. It was an instructive example of “safe is death”, with management petrified of making any blockbuster moves primarily because they didn’t want to be on the wrong side of them. Of course, it makes sense to provide time and forgiveness to a young group acquired mostly via high draft picks, but the problem with patience is that, if it doesn’t manifest in wins and progress somewhere down the line, it eventually forces management into precisely the kind of pennies-on-the-dollar transactions Chiarelli made in sending Taylor Hall to New Jersey and Nail Yakupov to St. Louis.

With another dismal start, the Avalanche are well on their way to following the Oilers’ lead in that regard. GM Joe Sakic has his full core group of forwards Nathan MacKinnon, Gabriel Landeskog and Matt Duchene, blueliners Erik Johnson and Tyson Barrie, and goalie Semyon Varlamov under contract for two more seasons after this one (with most of that group signed beyond 2019), but the injury bug has taken a bite out of them this year and exposed the absence of depth in Colorado’s system. With approximately $53 million already committed to the 2017-18 campaign, the notion of a big-name acquisition coming in and changing things next year is more than a little far-fetched. And with one-third of the Avs’ defense corps 33 years old or older, one of their longtime weaknesses isn’t about to suddenly become a strength.

In sum, the Avs are nowhere near good enough to compete with the true Cup contenders, and even if they do bottom out and win the NHL draft lottery this spring for the right to draft Brandon Wheat Kings star center Nolan Patrick with the first overall pick, is he what they really need at this point in their history? Maybe, but maybe the better answer is to take a calculated gamble and move one of their core members before Father Time and another wasted year cut into any return they’d receive in a trade.

Such a gamble would undoubtedly lead to criticism from and upset among Avalanche fans, but those people shouldn’t kid themselves: what Sakic and ownership are doing and have been doing for years now is a calculated gamble in and of itself. And as the playoffs begin to fade in the rearview mirror once again, that gamble is delivering only heartache and astonishment of the worst kind.

Change can’t go any worse than patience has gone for Colorado thus far. If you're an Avs fan, you want the similarities to the ultra-patient Oilers to end as soon as possible, and the best way to do that is to shake up this snow globe and embrace the altered landscape.
Join the Discussion: » 14 Comments » Post New Comment
More from Adam Proteau
» Proteau's Division Predictions
» Proteau's Division Predictions
» Pre-season picks: Atlantic Division
» Pre-season picks: Metropolitan Division
» Pre-season picks: Pacific Division