Colorado Avalanche: Plan for Getting Nathan MacKinnon a Stanley Cup
The Colorado Avalanche can win the Stanley Cup during Nathan MacKinnon’s career. They just need to keep to the plan.
I can’t get the image of Colorado Avalanche captain Gabriel Landeskog hoisting the Stanley Cup above his head. Yes, this post is about getting Nathan MacKinnon a Cup ring because he’s our superstar — and figures heavily in the equation. However, I literally fantasize about the joy on our captain’s face as he lifts the Stanley Cup.
Well, here in Avs Nation, we all want the same thing, and it’s exactly that — another Stanley Cup championship in Colorado. What’s more, we don’t want to be like the Toronto Maple Leafs or Edmonton Oilers, waiting decades for their glory to return. In fact, we all want it for the core we have now.
To that end, though MacKinnon himself is only 22 years old, I’d say the championship has to happen within the next decade. It’s not going to happen next year, and even in the next five years would be pushing it. However, I think the Colorado Avalanche could bring another championship to Colorado by the year 2028.
That’s why we remain sports fans, right? The eternal hope that next time, or at least soon, it might be our stars chugging beer through their jerseys or jumping drunkenly into a fountain. (There’s not really a proper fountain for Gabe and the crew to jump into here in Denver, but as my friend Jessi pointed out, there’s a water feature near Union Station for the boys to cavort in.)
Here’s what Landy might do:
Landeskog celebrated gold medal win fully equipped in a hot tub. MORE: https://t.co/gp74moeTjf pic.twitter.com/8sUo3wVHLb
— BarDown (@BarDown) May 22, 2017
And Nate will have to display his dance moves again:
Nathan MacKinnon going full Nate Dawg in hockey gear is life.
Anyway, here’s how we can get our Avs to the most epic of sports celebrations — winning the Stanley Cup.
MacKinnon Stays in God Mode
Staying in our rap persona: Will the real Nathan MacKinnon please stand up?
We all watched the Colorado Avalanche’s only first-overall draft pick win the Calder Trophy for rookie of the year and then steadily become an average NHL first-liner for the next three seasons — 38 points, 52 points, 53 points. That’s not really team-leading stats.
Then, all of a sudden, Nathan MacKinnon kicked his play into a whole new mode — god mode — in his fifth NHL year. He earned 39 goals and 58 assists for 97 points. He was one of the, if not the, most electric players on ice this year. He’s even a heavy favorite for the Hart Trophy and a finalist for the Lindsay Award.
So, is Nathan MacKinnon an average first-liner, a hockey god, or something in between? Well, if the Avalanche want to win the Stanley Cup, MacKinnon needs to stay in god mode.
Modern-day Stanley Cup champions have to have a stellar star, an Alex Ovechkin or Sidney Crosby. Nate is what we’ve got, and he’s got to continue to be an elite forward if the Avs want to win a Cup.
Sakic Drafts/Signs Support for God MacKinnon
Ovechkin has his T.J. Oshie, Evgeny Kuznetsov and Nicklas Backstrom. Crosby has his Evgeni Malkin, Phil Kessel and Jake Guentzel.
Star players can’t do it all by themselves. MacKinnon needs his supporting cast.
Nate has support in Landeskog and Mikko Rantanen. However, the team needs more players who can provide scoring support for the team. Naturally, we all hope Tyson Jost will become one of those players. However, the Avs need to be able to roll out four decent lines on any given night, and they just don’t have that yet.
Colorado does have some offensive support from the blueline. Mainly that’s Tyson Barrie right now, but we’ve got Conor Timmins and Cale Makar incoming. And hopefully Sam Girard can find his offensive mojo.
GM Joe Sakic will have to continue to scour the draft and free agency for an adequate supporting cast for our superstar and his top line. They can’t do it alone.
Colorado Avalanche Stay their Course on Defense
Embed from Getty Images
*Whisper: The Colorado Avalanche don’t look too bad on defense.
I whisper that because for years the defense has been the bane of Colorado’s existence. It was made up of journeymen and aging veterans. That’s no longer true, and the Avs need to stay the course to develop a Cup-worthy defense.
Right now, the Avalanche have four cornerstones. They have their actual cornerstone defenseman in Erik Johnson — more on him in a moment. They have his heir-apparent in Nikita Zadorov. They have their best offensive defenseman in Tyson Barrie and his heir-apparent, as a puck-moving D anyway, in Sam Girard.
That ain’t bad, Avs Nation. Right now they’re augmenting that core with journeymen, but we all know what’s coming up the pipeline — two more offensive defensemen with a gift for puck moving, Conor Timmins (joining the team at the beginning of the year) and Cale Makar (likely joining the team at the end of the year).
A note about journeymen — you need one or two as seventh and eighth defensemen in case of injury. Colorado’s not too poorly stacked with the likes of Anton Lindholm, Josh Anderson and Nicolas Meloche, who just won the Kelly Cup in the ECHL incidentally.
The note about Erik Johnson: This is a ten-year plan. The 30-year-old Johnson has five years left on his contract. I’d love to see my favorite player get a Cup with my favorite team, but that might be pushing it. Sadly, the Colorado Avalanche better start planning on how they’ll replace his impressive two-way play.
And now on to the biggest deficit the Avs need to solve.
Avs Solve their Goalie Problem
The Colorado Avalanche have a goalie problem that’s verging on a goalie crisis. At the time of writing, the Avs only have two goalies signed — Semyon Varlamov and Pavel Francouz. Neither is the goalie to backstop Colorado to Stanley Cup victory.
No one currently in the system, even unsigned players like Spencer Martin are likely to be the goalie to backstop Colorado to Stanley Cup victory. Jury’s still out on Adam Werner and Petr Kvaca, both of whom the Avalanche have drafted but not yet signed.
As I noted here, Colorado is also considering offering Jonathan Bernier a contract. He’s not the answer either, though.
We’ve got to find the heirs apparent to the likes of Marc-Andre Fleury, Braden Holtby, Carey Price, Henrik Lundqvist, and Jonathan Quick. And we’ve got to find a way to get one of them onto the Colorado Avalanche. Really, the Avs have never played the style of hockey that can bail out an average goalie — they need one who stands on his head.
What the team needs to do is discover a Patrick Roy in the draft or languishing in some other team’s goalie depth pool.
Next: Best Photos from the Avs Cup Parades
The Stanley Cup fever surrounding the Washington Capitals has started to die down. However, it creates in me what it should create in you — a desire to see the Avs bring the best sports trophy back to Colorado. I think we have some of the pieces in place — hopefully the powers that be get more pieces to make this fantasy a reality.