Colorado Avalanche's Disappointing Season: What's To Blame?

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Colorado Avalanche goalie Semyon Varlamov (1) – Mandatory Credit: Jake Roth-USA TODAY Sports

The Colorado Avalanche aren’t throwing in the towel yet. Patrick Roy has gone on record as saying “when you wear the Avalanche logo, you battle.”

This is how it should be. Tanking is for that awkward guy at the carnival — you know? The guy who charges a dollar a ball, and lets you throw them at a small target while he sits on a ledge rigged to fail if said target is hit. He goes ker-splashing into the giant dunk tank when the kid juiced up on cotton candy and coke throws a strike.

Reason 1: The Bad Start?

The Colorado Avalanche lost consecutive games to open their season to the Minnesota Wild, by a cumulative score of 8-0. Apply aloe vera as necessary.

The tone for the poor start was set before opening night in my opinion. The Avs won a single game in pre-season, and while I think the performance should be taken with a large granule of salt due to all the youngsters playing, it seemed to sort of set into the vibe of the team heading into the meaningful action.

The Avalanche managed only 4 wins in their first 18 games, for a record of 4-8-6. This put them at 14 points through 18 games, and also put them behind the playoff pace in a hurry.

After 18 games, the Avs needed a 1.27 point-per-game pace to reach 95, which is often cited as the approximate playoff barrier. This pace equates to about a 104 point season over 82 games.

It’s no fun having to chase your season. The Avalanche are actually playing decent hockey of late, and are putting up points at a decent clip, but the problem is, so is everyone else.

You could make a decent argument that the first fifth of the season or so really sunk the Avalanche. They couldn’t get on track fast enough, and are paying for it now.

Next: Reason TWO

Colorado Avalanche defenseman Erik Johnson (6) – Mandatory Credit: Chris Humphreys-USA TODAY Sports

Reason 2: Injuries

The Colorado Avalanche sit at 414 man-games lost to injury this season, which is good for 2nd most in the NHL. Only the Columbus Blue Jackets have a higher total.

This makes sense, because the Blue Jacket players are dodging cannon fire in their home arena for 41 games a season. There are bound to be some injuries.

The Avs have had some key guys miss time. Semyon Varlamov could never get into an early-season rhythm, and he missed several weeks with re-occuring groin issues.

Erik Johnson hasn’t played since the all-star break, after undergoing a minor procedure. Now, Nathan MacKinnon is on the shelf for the remainder of the year with a busted foot.

The quality of names missing big chunks of time are definitely there. There have been some other injuries that have really ruptured the depth of the Avs.

The Colorado Avalanche sit at 414 man-games lost to injury this season, which is good for 2nd most in the NHL.

The Avs haven’t even seen Jesse Winchester play this season, and he was a guy who was supposed to solidify the bottom-six.

Enforcer Patrick Bordeleau has less than ten minutes of ice-time to his name this season.

Perhaps the most significant injury has been Jamie McGinn. Jamie is a guy who is top-six/bottom-six versatile, and has shown good chemistry with Matt Duchene in the past. Roy has resorted to line-shuffling often this season, both out of necessity and to try and shake things up.

I think Dutchy would have had a lot more success on the scoreboard if he had McGinn flying by his side instead of Max Talbot. Talbot is a hard-worker, but just doesn’t have the hands or offensive acumen to keep up with the Flying Dutchyman.

Injuries are never used as an excuse when a team struggles. Coaches often employ a next man up attitude. Anaheim sits 3rd in the league in man-games lost and they are serious contenders for the President’s trophy. Pittsburgh, the Islanders, Minnesota, and Washington are all in the top-10 in man-games lost — yet they all are sitting pretty in playoff spots as of today.

Should the Avalanche have overcome their injury woes, or do we give them a pass this year since they have had so many guys banged up?

Next: Reason THREE

Colorado Avalanche defenseman Brad Stuart (17) – Mandatory Credit: Kamil Krzaczynski-USA TODAY Sports

Reason 3: The Defensive Core

The area that the Avalanche look the weakest on paper is the defensive core. The Avs have offensive dynamo Tyson Barrie doing his thing. He is excellent at getting the puck out of the defensive zone once he has it (a very under appreciated part of his game).

Barrie is still trying to learn how to maximize his effectiveness as a positional and physical defender, but he certainly holds his own for a guy his size.

Erik Johnson has been MIA for a while, but when he was in the line-up this year, he gave the Avalanche a bonafide number one. EJ was fantastic in all facets of the game (including his Twitter game), and I’m ecstatic to have him on this team.

The rest of the defense is underwhelming.

I think a lot of ink has been spilled on all of these guys, so I don’t even want to go into it too much. You know who they are, and you know what they’re all about. If not, feel free to browse the site, I’m sure you’ll find some articles I’ve written critiquing the D.

What I will talk about is how this team is structured. The Avalanche have some speedy forwards who like to get out in transition. This team is built to be offensive.

The Avalanche defense has several guys who are chip it up the boards type players. This can be an effective strategy, but it requires the forwards to be helping out. Clearing the zone is a team effort with guys like Brad Stuart and Nate Guenin on the ice.

The Avalanche defense has several guys who are chip it up the boards type players. This can be an effective strategy, but it requires the forwards to be helping out.

This can work, and the forwards for the Avalanche can do a better job at helping out their D and being accountable.

At times this season, there has been a bit of a discontinuity between the D and forwards, and that’s not always entirely on the D. The forwards have to do their part to help make the D look good.

On the other hand, I don’t think you maximize this team’s talents when your defenders are below average at transitioning the puck from defense to offense.

Guys like Redmond and Holden offer flashes of exciting play, but they are also plagued by inconsistency.

All in all, I think the Avalanche forwards spend too much time worrying about the D. There are too many immobile guys on the back-end that create doubt in the forwards minds, and there are too many shaky passers to truly let the forwards shine in transition.

Chris Bigras is knocking on the door for next season. I’ll be curious if he, or perhaps Duncan Siemens factor into the lineup next season. I also think the Avalanche should look to acquire a reliable defender to help shore up that depth in their top-4.

Do you think the Avalanche defensive core has been adequate this season?

Next: Reason FOUR

Colorado Avalanche forward Jarome Iginla (12)- Mandatory Credit: Brad Rempel-USA TODAY Sports

Reason 4: The Powerless Play

Believe it or not, the Avalanche actually sit 10th in the NHL in goals/60 at 5-on-5. They are averaging 2.34 goals/60 at even strength, which is the exact same rate they are giving up goals at 5-on-5.

The Avalanche penalty kill sits at 84.7%, good for 6th in the NHL, thanks in large part to Semyon Varlamov’s other-wordly save-percentage while shorthanded. Seriously — a 0.944 save-percentage while shorthanded isn’t human. It’s a stat that some sort of Russian robot would put up, which leads me to believe Varly’s groin isn’t getting strained, it’s getting short-wired.

Perception is that the Avalanche offense has struggled, but in reality it seems as though they are doing a good job scoring goals at 5-on-5. Overall, they are breaking even at 5-on-5. 130 goals for. 130 goals against.

In fact, Matt Duchene is 15th in the NHL with 37 points at 5-on-5 this season. Jarome Iginla is in the top-30, and Gabriel Landeskog, Nathan MacKinnon, and Alex Tanguay are all in the top-75 in the NHL.

The Avalanche’s “scoring slumps” for a lot of their players are due to the power play’s lack of production.

It is unfortunate, because considering the stats and data above, they seemed to be in pretty good position to be a strong team if the power play were clicking. They are holding serve at 5-on-5, and Varlamov has made their PK unit into one of the league’s strongest.

The Avalanche’s power play sits at 13.4% for the season, which is better than only Buffalo. When you are as low as Buff-a-low, you get an audible “uh-oh” from me.

For context, the Detroit Red Wings have scored the most power play goals in the NHL this season — They have 62 power play goals to the Avalanche’s 30.

If the Avalanche were a top-5 team in PP goals, they’d have at least an extra 20 goals on the season.

Remember, the Avalanche are 10th in goals/60 at 5-on-5, yet they are 22nd in the NHL with 2.56 goals/game. The shortage of electricity to their power play has left them dry on the scoresheet. Imagine all those timely goals and momentum swinging lamp-lighters the Avalanche have missed out on.

The Avalanche’s power play has been a major letdown, but is it the greatest factor in their fall from the playoffs this season?

In reality, issues in these four categories have all factored into the Avalanche not reaching their full potential this season. Which do you think has had the greatest impact?

**Stats taken from NHL.com and stats.hockeyanalysis.com**

Next: Jarome Iginla Deserves Better

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