Colorado Avalanche Goals for Core Players in the 2017-18 Season

The Colorado Avalanche players need to set and achieve goals for themselves in order to have a better 2017-18 season.

The Colorado Avalanche need goals, lots of goals this season. That’s how you win hockey games.

However, the Avalanche players themselves also need the other kind of goals — the kind that will help them improve their game. And that will eventually lead to scoring good hockey goals.

As a team, the Avs have their own set of goals. They need to be a more cohesive unit. Last season center Nathan MacKinnon complained that the players seemed to lack chemistry. Well, as an alternate captain, he’s partially responsible for creating that sense with the team. Likewise, hopefully the coaching staff creates some consistency how they run the lines so teammates can get used to each other.

This summer, center Matt Duchene caused controversy when he admitted that he was burned out by January — a lot of the players were. Some people observed that he and other players were phoning it in rather than giving their all.

Well, that can also fall under the purview of the team leaders, both those who wear the letter and those who don’t. Likewise, the coaches have to hold players responsible. If a player is phoning it in, he needs to ride the pine — no matter how big his name is. Maybe players who are clearly giving their all can sit out on practice bag skates — or on practices themselves.

I’d also prefer it if the front offices didn’t declare the season a wash in January like they did last year. That has to be demoralizing.

In any case, those are overarching goals for the team as a whole. Let’s look now at some individual achievements I’d like to see the core players reach.

Nathan MacKinnon

2016-17 Points: 53 (16 goals, 37 assists)
Career Best Stats: 63 points (24 goals, 39 assists) in 2013-14
2016-17 Shooting Percentage: 6.4%
Special Concern: Decreasing shooting percentage

Center Nathan MacKinnon is the Colorado Avalanche’s only first-overall draft pick, so the expectations are high for him. This is especially true since he won the Calder Trophy for rookie of the year in 2014.

To be fair, his 53 points last season led all Avalanche players. Goals-wise, he was fourth on the team. This is one of only two players GM Joe Sakic has labeled as untouchable, so you want a little better.

Here are some goals I think Nathan MacKinnon can reach this season:

• Achieve 9% or more shooting accuracy
• Record 60 points
• Keep shots total over 200

Except for his sophomore year, when he missed 18 games, MacKinnon has always recorded over 200 shots — he usually leads the team in that area. It’s good for him to keep that up.

What needs to happen is he needs to improve his shooting percentage. That may be attributed to where he’s shooting from, or it may have something to do with the shot itself. However, his shooting percentage has fluctuated throughout his four-year career with a downward trend. If he had reached the NHL-average 9% last season, he would have scored 22 goals instead of 16.

MacKinnon is showing himself to be a good playmaker, so he records a lot of assists. If he can push himself to be a 20+ goal scorer who also records 30+ assists, it shouldn’t be too hard for him to record over 60 points — which is what the Avalanche need from their “untouchable” player.

Tyson Barrie

2016-17 Points: 38 (7 goals, 31 assists)
Career Best Stats: 53 points (12 goals, 41 assists) in 2014-15
2016-17 Shooting Percentage: 3.8%
Special Concern: -29 turnover ratio

Defenseman Tyson Barrie is the Colorado Avalanche’s second-best defenseman, a cornerstone after only Erik Johnson. The 26-year-old is entering what amounts to his sixth full NHL season.

Barrie is known for being a true offensive defenseman. While his positioning and stick work are good, defense is the first thing to go out of his game.

Well, this season Barrie has earned almost veteran status, especially since he’s likely to be paired with a youngster with either just 31 NHL games (Chris Bigras) or 12 NHL games (Anton Lindholm). That means Tyson has to develop a better all-around game.

Here are some goals I’d like to see Barrie reach this season:

• Achieve at least 5% shooting accuracy
• Decrease turnover ratio
• Maintain positive CorsiFor

I’m not an analytics wizard, but my understanding is that Barrie’s 54.3 CorsiFor% and 9.3 relative Corsi are good. Keep it that way, Tyson.

I know I keep harping on Barrie’s turnover ratio, and that a player with so much puck possession is going to turn the puck over more often. However, I’d just like to see him decrease that ratio a little — maybe get at least a little closer to even.

Over the course of his career, Tyson Barrie’s shooting percentage has been 7%, but he was a dismal 3.8% last year. His best season was the (original) Why Not Us year when he achieved 12.9% I don’t think it’s unreasonable to expect Barrie to shoot at around 5% or better accuracy.

Matt Duchene

2016-17 Points: 41 (18 goals, 23 assists)
Career Best Stats: 70 points (23 goals, 47 assists) in 2013-14; 30 goals in 2015-16
2016-17 Shooting Percentage: 11.3%
Special Concern: shots on goal — 160

Center Matt Duchene has been the Colorado Avalanche’s best player for a while now. He’s the only core forward who’s achieved both a 70-point season and a 30-goal season. And yet the weight of the team has been placed solely on his shoulders. It doesn’t help that the man himself is his own worst critic.

Well, it certainly is true that Duchene didn’t have a season to be proud of last year. He earned only 41 points and didn’t even crack the 20-goal mark.

That said, there were some positives in Duchene’s game last year. He had an impressive 11.3% shooting accuracy. Unfortunately, his shot total was only 160. Matt is ever known for being the player who looks for the pretty play.

Here are three goals I’d like to see Duchene reach this season:

• Maintain at least 10% shooting accuracy
• Increase shot total to 200+
• Record 70 points

Most top forwards have around a 9% shooting accuracy. However, Duchene has never dropped that low — his lowest year was 2014-15 at 10.1% Career-wise, his accuracy is 12.2%. However, there’s a downside to that…

Duchene doesn’t take a lot of shots. Over the course of his career, his average shot total is 179. He’s had several 200+ shot years — I’d like to see him there again. That’s how a player with Duchene’s shooting accuracy scores 20+ goals. (His 30-goal year came with 200 shots and 15% shooting accuracy.)

I’d love to see Matt Duchene score 30 goals again. However, it looks good that he’ll skate on a line with another sniper, Nail Yakupov. So, even if Dutchy doesn’t quite make 30 goals, I think he should achieve 70+ points. He did so one other time and came close in 2010-11 with 67 points.

Erik Johnson

2016-17 Points: 17 (2 goals, 17 assists)
Career Best Stats: 39 points (10 goals, 29 assists) in 2009-10; (9 goals, 30 assists) in 2013-14
2016-17 Shooting Percentage: 2.1%
Special Concern: only 46 games played

Defenseman Erik Johnson is the cornerstone of the Colorado Avalanche blueline. He sees the top minutes against the top lines. When the likes of Sidney Crosby or Connor McDavid are on the ice, Johnson gets tapped to stop them.

Johnson isn’t a stay-at-home defenseman — he’s two-way. He’s not going to jump into the play as much as Tyson Barrie, but EJ is expected to contribute on offense as well.

As with every other core player, last season was a bad one for Erik Johnson. In fact, his broken leg in early December is part of what derailed the Avalanche’s season. (Not-so) fun fact: Erik Johnson has never played a full NHL season.

Here are three goals I’d like to see Johnson reach:

• Play all 82 games
• Record 39 points
• Achieve at least 5% shooting accuracy

More from Mile High Sticking

• Could Colorado Avalanche move on from Pavel Francouz next offseason?
• 4 goalies to replace Pavel Francouz if he has to miss time
• Colorado Avalanche make sneaky signing with Tatar
• Colorado Avalanche captain Gabriel Landeskog could return in 2023-24 playoffs
• Colorado Avalanche rookie face-off tournament roster

The Colorado Avalanche need their best defenseman, as we saw all too clearly last year. Unfortunately, Johnson is injury prone. He did come close to playing a full season in 2013-14, but the (stupid) NHL Department of Player Safety suspended him for two games.

Johnson has twice reached the 39-point mark in his career. At 29 years old, he’s in his prime for a defenseman. I’d like to see him reach that mark again — this year, specifically.

One way to help that is by improving his shooting accuracy. You certainly don’t expect a defenseman to have the same shooting accuracy as a forward. However, his career-average is 5% — more than two times better than last year’s. There’s no reason he couldn’t achieve that again.

Semyon Varlamov

2016-17 Record: 6-17-0
Career Best Stats: 41-14-6 in 2013-14; .927 save percentage and 2.41 goals against average in 2013-14
2016-17 Save Percentage & GAA: .898%, 3.38
Special Concern: groin surgery

Goalie Semyon Varlamov has to have a strong season for the Colorado Avalanche. His best season came in the golden Why Not Us (original) era when he went into beast mode and ended up as a finalist for the Vezina Trophy.

Unfortunately, groin muscle issues have plagued Varlamov for a large part of his career. His 2016-17 season was cut short so that he could have surgery to repair the issues. He missed a full eight months of hockey, but all reports indicate he’s back on track.

We’d all love to see Semyon Varlamov return to his 2013-14 form, but that might not be feasible. The conditions just aren’t the same — not least because he’s nearly 30 now.

However, here are three goals I’d like to see Varlamov reach this season:

• Achieve a .916% save percentage
• Achieve a 2.65 goals against average
• Play 50 games

GM Joe Sakic has stated he doesn’t want Varlamov playing 60+ games anymore, as he did in 2013-14. I think those past 57-game seasons might also be a lot for Varlamov. I’d like to see him closer to the 50-game mark, which should be feasible with capable (but now groin-injured) backup Jonathan Bernier.

If Varlamov is playing less, he should be able to improve his statistics. Both the .916% save percentage and 2.65 goals against average are career averages for the goalie. They also represent a marked improvement from last year and a slight improvement from the previous year.

It’s going to be imperative for the Colorado Avalanche that Semyon Varlamov play well. He’s going to have a very young and inexperienced defensive corps in front of him. He has to give them time to get through their growing pains.

The Colorado Avalanche need to have a bounce-back season. If the core players can achieve the above goals, the team should be in good shape for 2017-18.