Colorado Avalanche Possible Defensive Pairings
By Will Radke
The Colorado Avalanche have dealt away Nick Holden while signing Fedor Tyutin and Patrick Wiercioch. With 7 defenseman assumingly under contract for next season, what should we expect to see on the Avs blueline?
The Colorado Avalanche blue line will look noticeably different next year, but for today let’s set aside the discussion of whether Sakic upgraded the defense (he didn’t) or whether the Avs will finally have a semi-solid blue line (they won’t) to discuss pairings for next year.
Anyone who’s not a fan of the Avs probably would never guess that Nick Holden was playing over 20 minutes a night. This makes his trade a fairly big hole in terms of minutes. In fact all of the Avs’ top 4 logged fairly big minutes/game (not surprising), but the drop after that is significant.
The Avalanche defense were led by Francois Beauchemin who I was surprised to see averaged over 25 minutes a game last year. He was followed by Erik Johnson and Tyson Barrie, who both played around 23 minutes a game, and then Nick Holden, who played roughly 22. After that Nikita Zadorov played an average of 16 minutes and then Chris Bigras played around 13 (which is weird because Roy played Bigras in 9 more games then Zadorov).
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Regardless, I seriously doubt Zadorov is going to jump up 6 minutes a game or that Bigras is going to jump 9, which leaves us a hole at the 4 spot. (And in case you were wondering, Eric Gelinas played only 12 and a half minutes a night for 6 games, good use of a third round pick!)
Anyway with all those preemptive notes in mind here’s what I would expect the D to look like for opening night:
Beauchemin-Johnson
Tyutin-Barrie
Wiercioch/Gelinas-Zadorov/Bigras
I would be extremely surprised if the Avs top 3 changes at all next year, let alone in time for opening day. As a result expect Beauchemin, Johnson, and Barrie to log similar minutes this year. For Barrie’s partnership and possible-but-not-probable-love, the only player that really makes sense is Tyutin. Wiercioch and Gelinas are both offensive minded defenseman whose play in their own end has drawn criticism, so neither will play with Barrie. And Zadorov and Bigras are both too young and inexperienced to play with such an aggressively offensive defenseman.
Granted Tyutin is pretty old now and slowing down, but that’s never changed the Colorado Avalanche mindset before!
After the top 2 pairings it gets a bit hairier. Zadorov and Bigras are the only players with two-way contracts, but I’m assuming the Avs are going to want to start increasing at least one of their minutes. At the same time, as mentioned above, both Wiercioch and Gelinas are a decent liability at the back end, so I would be very surprised to see them both draw into the lineup at the same time. This leaves one from each of the pairs to play on opening night. If I was a gambling man I would bet Wiercioch and Zadorov will debut as the third pair opening night.
If Zadorov or Bigras can prove themselves early next year there is a chance one of them slides up next to Barrie and make Tyutin a healthy scratch. But besides that I don’t see both Zad’s and Bigras playing much at the same time next year.
It’s going to be an interesting (read: frustrating) season again this coming year at defense. There hasn’t been noticeable improvement at the back end, and the players acquired fill archetypes already nailed down pretty well by the Avs. But hopefully Zadorov and Bigras can develop a bit and maybe, just maybe, there’s light at the end of the tunnel for the Avs defense.