Colorado Avalanche: 10 Reasons Why the 2011-2012 Season Will Be Much Improved
The Colorado Avalanche are experiencing something that no team likes to experience. The massive losing streak, which is now to 18 of their last 19 games, is something that would dishearten any group of the most resilient people.
As fans, it is just as hard to sit and watch our beloved team crumble night after night. We change the channel, we leave the game early, we vow not to watch the games for the rest of the season, but we always end up back there anyways.
As the saying goes, after every storm, there is a rainbow. So as we try and reach for the silver lining in the disaster that has been the 2010-11 Colorado Avalanche season, let's take a moment to look for the hope that comes with the start of every new season.
Here are 10 reasons the 2011-2012 season will be miles better than the current one.
1. Peter Mueller
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Peter Mueller was a deadline acquisition last season, and boy, did he pay off.
In 15 games that he played with the Avalanche, Mueller had 20 points (five goals, 15 assists). Now it's obvious that it isn't realistic to expect that kind of production from him for a full 82 game season, but to know that he is capable of putting up those types of numbers is reason to be excited for his return.
Many of those points came on the power play, where he took up a left point position. Currently, the Avalanche have Erik Johnson filling that role with the first unit, but Mueller would make a much more desirable fit for the second unit than Kevin Porter currently provides.
Mueller has a big shot, great instincts, is a very crafty play maker, and is a big body. One of the biggest problems for the Avalanche right now is that they are so undersized. At 6 ft. 2 in. tall, and 205 lbs., Mueller definitely helps with the size factor.
The big question mark surrounding Mueller is his ability to stay healthy. He missed the last few regular season games and all of the playoffs last year because of a concussion and has missed this entire season because of a concussion. Too many concussions can definitely hurt your ice time but, more importantly, can also endanger your quality of life. The bottom line for Mueller is that he needs to be totally healthy before getting back to the team.
Mueller would most likely find his way onto a line with Matt Duchene, somebody he managed to establish a pretty good chemistry with. There's another guy who managed to establish some great chemistry with Duchene that should give Avalanche fans some hope.
Tomas Fleischmann
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It is hard to describe the kind of instant impact that Flash had on the Avalanche team. He especially had an influence on Matt Duchene, with whom he immediately found an instant chemistry.
Fleischmann played 22 games with the Avalanche this season and tallied 21 points (eight goals and 13 assists).
Fleischmann is fast, has a great shot, and is so patient with the puck that you can really never tell what his decision will be until after he made it.
He also has a knack for big time plays in big moments. During a home and home series with the Chicago Blackhawks, the Avalanche were tied, or down by a goal, going into the third period of both games. In both of those games, the Avalanche scored three third period goals, and in both of those games, Fleischmann was a part of each of those goals. In the second game, Flash had a hat trick in just the third period, leading the Avalanche to a win.
Perhaps the thing that shows Fleischmann's worth the best is that as soon as he went out for the season, the Avalanche began their epic losing streak.
As with Mueller, the big question about Fleischmann will be about his ability to stay healthy, though the concern is probably less than it is with Mueller. Flash left the season because of pulmonary emboli (blood clots in his legs) that have to be treated with blood thinners. Once he is off of those, his ability should return as his body gets used to the wear and tear again. Concussions are a totally different beast.
Count on this being a powerful line for the Avalanche next year: Mueller-Duchene-Fleischmann. A very potent combination.
3. Goalie Situation Will Be Addressed
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The only thing that has been consistent about the Avalanche goalie play this year is how horribly inconsistent it has been.
Things started to go bad for the Avalanche in goal when Craig Anderson injured his leg and missed several games in a row because of that injury. He never really was able to regain the form that he showed last season after that.
Couple that with a horrible mishandling of the goaltenders by coach Joe Sacco, and you have two goalies that have absolutely no confidence in themselves. Then the Avs traded Anderson to Ottawa for Brian Elliott, who has been consistent, but not the type of consistent that anybody wants.
In the offseason, the Avalanche have the potential to help sure up this position, again. Tomas Vokoun and Ilya Bryzgalov highlight the goalie free agents of this offseason. If the Avalanche are able to land one of them, that will go a long way towards fixing a position that the Avalanche have been unable to adequately fill every since the retirement of the great Patrick Roy.
Another potential option for the Avs in net is their young prospect Calvin Pickard. Pickard currently plays for the Seattle Thunderbirds of the WHL.
Pickard has been an absolute workhorse for his team, playing in 65 games so far. The next closest goalie on the team has 11 games. Pickard has a very average 3.38 goals against average but has a .918 save percentage. When you consider that Pickard faces an average of almost 40 shots per game, his number suddenly don't look all that bad. It is possible that he could surprise a lot of people and make the roster next year, though the Avalanche still will probably want to give him more time to develop.
Any way you look at it, as long as action is taken, the future is bright for the Avalanche in net.
4. Size Must Be Improved
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This season has been a picture perfect lesson on the necessity of size in the NHL today. Joe Sacco is all about speed for his team, and that's all well and good, but it led to some very interesting personnel decisions this year.
The Avalanche traded away a good size defensive prospect for small, fast, puck moving Matt Hunwick. This trade has come back to bite the Avalanche on the back side ever since it happened. Forgetting, for a moment, Hunwick's awful play all season, having him on the team made it so the Avalanche had a small defenseman on every single defensive pairing.
John-Michael Liles, Kyle Cumiskey, and Matt Hunwick. It isn't really that much of a surprise, therefore, that the Avalanche have frequently been dominated in their own zone by much bigger and much stronger forwards.
The only of these defenseman that has proved valuable in any way is John-Michael Liles who currently leads the team in assists, with 36.
The Avalanche absolutely must learn their lesson and get bigger, either through signing free agents or trading some of their players in the offseason.
Some teams are interested in these smaller d-men that can skate fast and move the puck because they don't already have two. The Avalanche also seem to have a high number of centers on the team, and some of them could be packaged as part of a trade to bring in a bigger, more punishing defenseman that might actually provide his goalie with some type of support.
5. Health Will Provide Consistency
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The start of a new season will mean the return of a lot of injured players. I've already highlighted the return of both Peter Mueller and Tomas Fleischmann. The return of these players cannot be overstated enough because with all of these injuries, it is impossible to find any kind of consistency.
Perhaps no player can better speak to that right now than Matt Duchene. Duchene has had his wingers constantly changed on him night in and night out. He has had Hejduk, Jones, Fleischmann, Forsberg, Porter, and even Greg Mauldin find themselves on his wings at various points throughout the year.
With all these injuries and all the constant changes, it's no wonder that he is struggling so much right now. While Duchene had Fleischmann with him, Duchene went on a scoring tear and ended up leading the Avalanche in scoring for several weeks. Ever since Flash left, Duchene, and the Avalanche as a whole, has struggled.
Assuming that the Avalanche are able to stay healthy, and Sacco doesn't get so antsy and panicky with all of his lines, it's quite possible that we will be able to see a lot of players begin to find some chemistry, rather than finding out who they're playing with when they get to the arena and know who was just called up from the AHL.
6. We'll Get to See What Erik Johnson Is Made Of.
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The Colorado Avalanche paid a big price in order to acquire Erik Johnson. Giving away two former first round picks of the Avalanche in Chris Stewart and Kevin Shattenkirk definitely was a big deal, especially considering that Stewart's break out season a year ago.
It's easy to see all the hype that surrounds Johnson. In several of the games played since he was traded to the Avalanche, Johnson has been the best player on the ice. Not only that, he's averaging about 26 minutes of ice time each night. That is nearly half of the game. His size is obviously something that you have to love, 6 ft 4 in. and 219 lbs, but his ability in all three zones is what sets this guy apart.
He's big, tough, strong on the puck, makes smart break-out passes, and has one of those shots that just seems to have eyes. No matter where he is shooting from, he almost always gets the puck on goal, which is something that the Avalanche have been struggling with this season.
Johnson is coming to the Avalanche with a huge chip on his shoulder. He already said that he wanted to make the Blues regret trading him, which he immediately did when he scored a big time goal against them in his return to St. Louis. More than just wanting to make his former team sad for losing him, he wants to become the type of defenseman that everybody has been expecting him to be. He wants to be the most dominant blue-liner in the NHL both in his own zone and on the offensive side.
His presence has already been felt on the power play, and it has been a long time since the Avalanche had this type of a work-horse defenseman that can play in all situations and has a bomb of a right handed shot. Rob Blake was the last time the Avalanche had that.
7. Dropping the Dead Weight
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Currently, due to the insane amount of injuries that they have suffered through, it feels like the Avalanche has as many AHL players on their roster as they do NHL players. I'm not going to say that all of them have been horrible, but at some point, it gets a bit ridiculous. Calling up players to give them a shot is one thing, but when you have a quarter of your minor league roster trying to fill in top line spots on the NHL team, things just aren't going to go your way.
Then there are the players who are just plain not carrying their weight and have turned into liabilities. Three guys come to mind in particular.
1. Matt Hunwick. Thank goodness this guy is a free agent after this year. The Avalanche have no reason to keep this guy, unless they want to have a soft defense and a player who avoids all physical contact like the plague. We already have a small defenseman who panics with the puck in his own zone; that's Kyle Cumiskey. We don't need another one.
2. Brandon Yip. After a really solid rookie season, Yip has disappeared completely. The only times he does reappear are when he takes stupid penalties that are a result of him being out of position, lazy, or foolishly aggressive. He still manages to log power play time, which mystifies me. He almost never is able to keep the puck on his stick for longer than three seconds, and then he either dumps the puck in or just flips around and tries to shoot the puck from wherever he is.
3. Kevin Porter. The big thing with Porter is just that he's not in a role that fits him. Yes, he won the Hobey Baker award in college, but this guy is not a top six forward that can produce the kind of numbers you would expect from a guy playing on Paul Stastny's wing. With a return to health from the rest of the Avalanche, Porter could take up a post on the third line and do pretty well. Also, he will probably no longer spend time on the point on power plays.
Once the Avalanche get rid of the guys who are bringing the team down, or at least get them in their appropriate role, things will definitely improve.
8. Kyle Quincey
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Kyle Quincey had a rough year this year. Quincey performed so well when he arrived in Denver after the trade that sent Ryan Smyth to L.A., a lot was expected of him. Like much of the defense, he played a bit inconsistently and seemed to have trouble in his own zone. Then he ended up with a season ending shoulder injury.
The big thing that the Avalanche will be happy to get back from Quincey is his size. He's another big defenseman that hits hard. Getting more of that back there can't possibly be a bad thing.
He also gets some action on the power play because of his ability to shoot the puck. It isn't as hard as Johnson's shot, but Quincey is another one that can get things through traffic.
With everybody healthy and ready to play, I believe that the defensive pairings will look a little something like this.
Liles, Johnson
Quincey, O'Byrne
Holos, Wilson.
The size and ability of these guys is definitely something that should make Avalanche fans perk up a bit.
9. Joe Sacco Has Something To Prove
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As Adrian Dater put it in a recent column of his, coaches often receive far too much praise when a team succeeds and far too much blame when a team loses. That being said, Joe Sacco's seat really couldn't get that much hotter. The Avalanche have lost 18 of their last 19 games, including eight straight. At some point, you have to look at the coaching.
Far too many times, in his post game conferences, Sacco has used the words "we just didn't start the game on time" or "we just got outworked" or "we made too many mental mistakes". At some point, you have to hold the coach accountable for that.
Whatever the case, Joe Sacco's job seems to be safe for one more year. GM Greg Sherman has already said that Sacco and his crew will be back in Colorado for another season. This seems reasonable, considering the great results of last season and also considering the insane number of injuries the Avalanche have dealt with this year.
Still, even though he is going to be back next year, next season is a bit like Sacco's "rubber match". Sacco has to show which season was the anomaly. Was it this season where the Avalanche frequently played as if they were asleep on the ice, didn't seem to understand any fundamentals, and were quick to quit on games? Or was it last season, where no lead seemed insurmountable, players played hard no matter what, and the Avalanche got 95 points in the standings and made the playoffs?
You had better bet that Sacco is going to want to cover everything that worked and didn't work, and that includes his "message sending". It seemed that last season's messages were received and pushed all the right buttons, and that this year, he was just trying to push as many buttons as he could and, as any Bugs Bunny cartoon will prove, if you push too many buttons, you're bound to hit the one that will cause an explosion in your face.
Sacco should be able to look back on the things that helped and hurt and make better coaching decisions.
10. Pure Pride and Team Unity
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One thing that all professional athletes have in common is pride. They are all there for one reason, and that reason is to win. It eats at players when they lose, especially the way that the Avalanche are losing. You can come with all your good stuff, but there are no moral victories in hockey. A loss is always a loss.
All through the losing streak, the Avalanche have all done the right things in the media. Nobody has ever blamed any specific people on the team, lashed out at coaches, or anything like that. The message has always been clear, we are in this together, and we will get out of this together. It's always easy to come to work when things are going well, but it's when things are falling apart that a team is truly able to band together.
This is one reason the Avalanche will do better next season. The group, as a whole, is tired of losing, and they know that the only way to get back to where the Avalanche organization used to be is to work together. To be too proud to allowed teams to constantly score four or more goals. To stand up for a teammate when somebody takes an extra liberty or two on them.
This mentality, and this unity, will lead to a team that I think will surprise a lot of people next year.
And a Bonus!
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Okay, I know, the title was 10 slides, but I couldn't resist throwing this one in. The biggest benefit about losing as much as the Avalanche are losing is that you get a pretty sweet draft pick. At the moment, there is a very real possibility that the Avalanche could end up with the number one overall draft pick in the upcoming NHL Entry Draft.
Currently topping all of the charts of draft prospects is Gabriel Landeskog, a Swedish born player who currently captains the OHL's Kitchener Rangers. Here's a brief biography on him from the Rangers home page.
"Acquired by the Rangers in a trade with the Plymouth Whalers in 2009, Gabriel is the Rangers first European Captain. The youngest player ever to suit up on Djurgarden in the Swiss Elite League, he has managed to mix the typical Swedish hockey sense and skill with the physicality of North American hockey to become a dominant player in the CHL.
Gabriel is eligible for the 2011 NHL Entry Draft and ranked as the number one overall pick when the midterm rankings were released this year."
Here's the thing that stand out the most to me. "He has managed to mix the typical Swedish hockey sense and skill with the physicality of North American hockey..."
You know who else had that type of skill and physical ability? Peter Forsberg. If the Avalanche end up with the number one overall pick, they should jump on this guy like a wolf jumps on a gazelle. Take a look at his stats for this year.
50 games, 35 goals, 29 assists for 64 points. He also has 59 penalty minutes, so you know he can handle some of the rough stuff. The thing that I like the most about him is his size. He's six feet tall and weighs 207 pounds. He already has an NHL physique and can instantly be an impact.
In Conclusion
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Things are bleak for the Colorado Avalanche right now; there is no denying it. But there is also no denying that there is a light at the end of the tunnel.
Our season is lost, for now; that is certain, but the best thing about seasons is that you always get a fresh one at the start of the following year, and the Avalanche have a lot of good things coming their way.
The Avalanche will get healthy, they will learn their lessons of this year, they will get bigger and stronger, they will be more of a unit, they will all be playing to win, and they just might have the best possible prospect in their locker room at the start of next season.
All of these reasons should make Avalanche fans hopeful. If they can just stay healthy, the Avalanche could make a solid playoff run.
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