Colorado Avalanche: Still a Team for the Future

The Colorado Avalanche lost to the Washington Capitals, thus erasing the final hope that they might make a run for the playoffs.

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Well, I don’t think any of us really expected the Colorado Avalanche to beat the Washington Capitals, did we? I mean, we held out hope, because that’s what you do as a fan. However, the Capitals are such a strong team this season and have just clinched the President’s Trophy. This is a team that looks good to make a run at the Stanley Cup.

The Colorado Avalanche have proven themselves to be a bubble team — and bubble out, apparently. The Minnesota Wild would have to completely implode (one can hope) and the Avs win all their remaining games (I repeat, one can hope) for Colorado to overtake them in the standings.

Here at Mile High Sticking, we’re going to spend a lot of time dissecting the season and trying to find the answers we all crave. Unfortunately, I think so much of it boils down to two things — lack of talent and lack of a will to win.

The Colorado Avalanche are not a deep team. The core — Matt Duchene, Nathan MacKinnon, Gabriel Landeskog, Erik Johnson, Tyson Barrie — is surrounded by either aging veterans, unproven prospects or a roving band of role players. All it takes is for one core player to get injured or, ahem, suspended, for the fragility of the roster to be exposed.

There is one player who doesn’t fit into that list — Mikkel Boedker. He has been the complement to the Avalanche’s offense — especially Duchene and MacKinnon — that neither Paul Stastny nor Ryan O’Reilly ever was. It’s the speed, and the talent. If the Avs were ever going to overpay a little for someone, I’d like to see it be Boedker. (More on that in the future.)

Watching the Washington Capitals last night, I just couldn’t get over what a solid team they are. Their passes were crisp in their tape-to-tape execution. Colorado may think they didn’t play their best against Washington, but the truth is the Capitals are just that much a better team.

The Capitals are a strong puck-possession team, but they’re not based on defensive plays like the LA Kings are. I think Colorado can pattern some of their play after Washington.

The stated Colorado Avalanche style has been a rush game based on turnovers rather than strong puck possession. I suspect that, based on the new emphasis on tenacity, the Avs are going to work a little more on possessing the puck. However, they’ll need to continue to emphasize size and aggression if forcing turnovers is still part of their game — and I think it will be.

The cold, hard truth, Avs Nation, is that the Colorado Avalanche were run without vision for too many years. The team became thin, and the coffers were empty. In the last three years, management — fronted by former Avs greats Joe Sakic and Patrick Roy — have been toiling to correct those deficiencies. We’ll spend a lot of time examining how they’ve done, and what still needs to be done. However, I’m confident they’re on the right track.

Next: 3 Possible Scenarios for Avs Future

As head coach Patrick Roy has been saying, the culture of the Colorado Avalanche is changing. If you pretend the seasons happened in this order — 2012-13, 2014-15, 2015-16, 2013-14 — then the team is showing a regular progression. Even if you look in the chronological order, the overall trend is up — the key is to remember how dismal the 2012-13 season, before Roy and Sakic came in, truly was.

So, unfortunately, the Colorado Avalanche are still a team of the future. However, the future isn’t so far away. As Roy and Sakic continue to work on both the roster of the team and the mentality of the players, the Avs are going to start resembling the winners we’re all convinced they should be.

And then we’ll watch them become contenders again. Mark my words, Sakic and Roy have the vision to bring glory back to Colorado hockey.