Colorado Avalanche’s Prospect Pool Is Worrisome

The Colorado Avalanche core is still very young, which bodes well for the coming years. Unfortunately there’s no one currently in the system who will be moving up to help them out.

Just this morning I was reading an article about the possible dismissal of Minnesota Wild GM Chuck Fletcher. It pointed to the obvious things such as that he’s given out wildly expensive contracts that extend far past the prime of many players, but also that he really hasn’t done anything to improve the team’s future. For proof of this they referenced Hockey’s Future, a website that focuses on prospects and ranks teams by their prospect pool, where the Wild were ranked 25th.

I had curiosity. I knew it would hurt me. I knew I would be sad. But I clicked the link. I scrolled, and I scrolled, and I scrolled. And down at 30th out of 30th — your Colorado Avalanche.

Why The Colorado Avalanche Are Last

First, things first, name one decent prospect that hasn’t played in the NHL this year. Got anything?

While other teams often keep players down in juniors an extra year (Jonathan Drouin they just kept him from the pros to long), or have exciting prospects everyone knows developing in college or the AHL the Avalanche have no one.

Yes they have Mikko Rantanen, but in this day and age of extensive scouting it’s pretty much a given that your first round pick (especially a 10th overall pick), is going to develop into a decent player. After that Hockey’s Future points out that:

"Colorado has many prospects who could fill bottom-six roles in the NHL, but the organization is low on high-end, skilled prospects. The wings are lacking depth and the centers leave much to be desired."

The really scary part is that’s all the website has for weaknesses for the Avalanche, but it’s enough to land them in last place. Other teams have multiple paragraphs under the weakness column, but it’s pretty simple for the Avs: there’s not really any high end talent coming soon.

More from Mile High Sticking

Hockey’s Future concedes Chris Bigras and Brandon Gormley could turn into decent 5 or 6 defenseman, and maybe crack the top 4. But how many D have the Avalanche failed to develop over the years? John-Michael Liles was at one point to be our D of the future, Duncan Siemens is now 22 and looked terrible in the San Antonio game I recently watched, Cameron Gaunce never turned into anything, and Stefan Elliott was traded for Gormley after he failed to progress.

So not only do the Colorado Avalanche not have any top end talent coming soon, they have failed to develop much of the top end talent they’ve been handed in the past.

The Colorado Avalanche Front Office

I didn’t plan to criticize Sakic two consecutive days, but at this point it’s feeling more and more deserving. Just the other day, in case you missed it, I went over the Avs current contract situation and how nearsighted it was for the Avs to pick up the Andrew Bodnarchuk contract, bringing them to the max number of contracts allowed.

So to quickly summarize, the Avalanche have a good core of 5 or 6 forwards, three good defenseman, and a great goaltender. Yet they have the worse prospect pool in the entire league, have put themselves at the contract limit, and in general failed to develop any true talent (barring Tyson Barrie) the the last 5 years.

Next: Is Change Necessary For The Avs?

Honestly I don’t know if it’s the scouting that’s failing to identify high potential prospects, maybe Duncan Siemens was overrated all along. Or maybe it’s the coaching that isn’t progressing players at a steady and consistent pace.

But the Avalanche are in a terrible spot — they’re not a win now team that’s traded their prospects for proven players. If anything they need more proven defenseman, but they have no prospects to trade. Lastly, they have lost leverage and flexibility by putting themselves against the cap for Bodnarchuk. At a point, it’s embarrassing and needs to change if the Avalanche are going to compete.