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Avs need to build from within |
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Rick Sadowski
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The lack of homegrown talent on the Avalanche has been a major problem and certainly one reason for their inability to make the playoffs the past two seasons, and in six of the past eight.
When the 2015-16 season ended, only six Avalanche draft picks -- Tyson Barrie, Chris Bigras, Matt Duchene, Gabriel Landeskog, Nathan MacKinnon and Calvin Pickard -- were on the roster.
Of those, three -- Barrie, Bigras and Pickard -- weren't first-round picks and gained valuable pro experience with Lake Erie and/or San Antonio in the American Hockey League. A number of other players on the roster who played with the Monsters or Rampage were signed as free agents.
Outside of high first-round picks, the Avalanche haven't been very good at drafting players who have developed into legitimate NHL players. It's the reason the Joe Sakic/Patrick Roy regime replaced Rick Pracey (now a scout with the Philadelphia Flyers) with Alan Hepple as director of amateur scouting after the 2014 draft.
It's much too early to tell how the 2015 draft crop will turn out, but at least it looks promising.
Right wing/center Mikko Rantanen (No. 10) and Providence's Frank Vatrano were named the AHL's outstanding rookies. Rantanen, who didn't have a point in nine Avalanche games, led the Rampage with 24 goals and 36 assists in 52 games. He's been named to Finland's training camp roster for the IIHF World Championships in May and was captain of his country's Under-20 gold medal-winning team at the World Junior Championships in January.
The Avalanche had two second-round picks in 2015, left wing A.J. Greer (No. 39) and defenseman Nicolas Meloche (No. 40). Greer left Boston University halfway through the season and had 16 goals and 11 assists in 33 games with Rouyn-Noranda in the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League. Greer has five goals and seven assists in nine playoff games for the Huskies, who went 54-9-5 in the regular season and are playing Moncton in the semifinals.
Meloche had 13 goals and 20 assists in 53 games while splitting the season between Baie-Comeau and Gatineau in the QMJHL. He had a goal and two assists in nine playoff games for Gatineau, which was eliminated in the quarterfinals.
Colorado's third-round selection, right wing J.C. Beaudin (No. 71), also played for Rouyn-Noranda and put up big numbers (33 goals, 49 assists) in 58 games. He has six goals and eight assists in nine playoff games.
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Several recent first-round picks -- center Joey Hishon, defenseman Duncan Siemens and center Conner Bleackley -- haven't panned out.
Injury problems plagued the 5-10, 170-pound Hishon (No. 17 in 2010) shortly after his surprise selection, but he was never given much of a chance to show whether he could play at the NHL level, and his future won't be with the Avalanche.
Siemens (No. 11 in 2011, nine spots behind Landeskog) also has had injury problems and has played one game in the NHL, the 2014-15 season finale. Maybe he'll wind up some place and prove that the Avalanche mistake wasn't in drafting him but in failing to give him a shot on a team so woeful on defense.
The Avalanche traded the rights to Bleackley (No. 23 in 2014) to the Arizona Coyotes on Feb. 29 in the Mikkel Boedker transaction. They also sent their 2014 second-round pick, defenseman Kyle Wood, and Alex Tanguay to Arizona in the deal. Boedker, who had four goals and eight assists in 18 games with Colorado, will be an unrestricted free agent July 1.
Sakic and Roy would prefer to build the team from within rather than through trades and free agency, but they'll explore both this offseason out of necessity.
"It won't be anything where we're looking to sign an older guy for a long-term deal," Sakic said during his season-ending news conference. "We're not going to look for a quick fix, but we have to explore options via a trade or whatever avenue to try and improve."
Those options will remain until the Avalanche is able to fill an organization that has been too bare for far too long with some good, young prospects capable of playing in the NHL.
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