Colorado Avalanche: McLeod May Hoist Stanley Cup Before Matt Duchene

Former Colorado Avalanche winger Cody McLeod looks poised to follow the Nashville Predators to potential Stanley Cup victory.

While the Colorado Avalanche are well into their offseason, the 2017 NHL Playoffs are entering the semifinals starting tomorrow.

The Nashville Predators surprisingly swept the Chicago Blackhawks in the first round and (not so surprisingly) marched past the St. Louis Blues in the second round. The Preds now face the Anaheim Ducks in the third round.

This has been a Cinderella season for the Nashville Predators, who started out by trading for star defenseman P.K. Subban last summer. The trade moved then-captain Shea Weber to Montreal — the Canadiens were eliminated in the first round. I’m not suggesting the two facts are related. However, Subban has seven points (1 goal, 6 assists) in 10 playoff games.

A much less publicized trade took place this January. The Colorado Avalanche traded their former alternate captain, Cody McLeod, to the Predators. In return they got AHL center Felix Girard.

Now, at first blush, it looks like the Colorado Avalanche were just trying to get rid of McLeod, especially since they retained 40% of his salary. In a way, that’s true. As GM Joe Sakic stated at the time, the focus for the team moving forward is to make room for prospects so the team can get “younger and faster.”

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McLeod is 32 years old, which is veteran status in hockey years. And no one has ever accused him of being fast except with his fists and his mouth. (He is known for having a colorful swearing vocabulary.)

However, Sakic also made it clear that moving McLeod was out of respect. He had already been stripped of his alternate captaincy. He didn’t fit into the team’s vision for the future, so he was getting scratched pretty regularly.

So, Sakic traded McLeod to a playoff team.

Now that team has proven to not only be a playoff team but one that looks ready to march all the way to the Stanley Cup Finals and Stanley Cup victory. The Preds have one hot goalie in Pekka Rinne, who’s allowed only 11 goals in his 10 playoff games. And a hot goalie can take you all the way to victory, as we saw in the 1996 Stanley Cup playoffs.

While he certainly hasn’t been the key player in the current Preds team — especially considering he spent the entire first round on the bench — McLeod hasn’t been a passenger. In Game 3 vs the St. Louis Blues, he even got a goal:

In any case, Cody McLeod may end up with his name on the Stanley Cup before any of our core players. McLeod may end up hoisting the Cup before our beloved Matt Duchene.

This is an observation I posed a week ago, though I added our captain into the mix:

All the responses I got were positive for McLeod, who was always a fan favorite here in Colorado:

That last observation is certainly true. The Nashville Predators are a much better and deeper team than the current configuration of the Colorado Avalanche.

Next: Musing About the Cody McLeod Trade

I agree with the Twitter-folk. I certainly bear Cody McLeod no ill will. He provided a service for the Colorado Avalanche, which included some of the toughest jobs in hockey. And when the team didn’t really need him anymore, he was graceful about his downfall.

That said, it will sting a little bit if I see McLeod lifting that Cup before Gabriel Landeskog and, especially, Matt Duchene in their Colorado Avalanche uniforms.