Colorado Avalanche: Some New Years Resolutions

The Colorado Avalanche need to make a commitment to being a better hockey team through January and beyond.

The Colorado Avalanche need to look to the future. And I’ve come with a list of how they can do that.

It’s January, that time of year that we all look at the things we can do better. We can be more punctual, save money, lose weight, travel more. The list is endless. Here’s what I think that our beloved team should do or focus on in the coming months.

1.Be the October team, not the December one.

Everyone in the NHL watched that 4-1 loss to the Islanders and are using it as a roadmap, showing them how to shut down one of the best lines in the NHL. We need Gabriel Landeskog, Nathan MacKinnon, and Mikko Rantanen to get a little creative.

The chemistry this team has together, knowing where each other are without even having to look, the trust that your linemate will be where you need him to be, all spell good hockey. And for a while, that was working. Now we need to get past the trap defensive setup and the man-to-man teams that are keeping us in the neutral zone, or worse, in our own end.

2. Stay/Get healthy.

What it says on the tin. You can have the best forward lines, goalies, or defensive pairings in the entire National Hockey League, but it won’t do you a bit of good if they aren’t out there playing together.

I know you’ve read my praises of Nikita Zadorov, and you’ll rarely hear me say something bad about Team Dad, Colin Wilson, but when we lost the two of them we moved from “kinda struggling” to “REALLY struggling.”

I am personally volunteering to fly to Denver and wrap Sven Andrighetto and JT Compher in bubble wrap before every game. This list could go on and on so I’ll just shorten it to say, be kind to each other and yourselves out there on the ice guys.

3. Figure out the goalie situation.

Subtitled: Let Pavel Francouz start. You’ve got an Olympian riding the bench while your two main goalies, Semyon Varlamov and Philipp Grubauer, are injured or falling apart. I mean this with all the love I can muster here y’all.

In reference to point number 2 above and this one, The Curse of the Glass Bionic Crotch has once again come to haunt us. We’ve said time and time again that we need to be careful with Varly. He’s breakable. And here we are in January and he’s listed day to day.

Meanwhile, Grubi, who I do think is a talented goalie in his own right, is in a slump where the other teams are having no problem reading him and it looks like he’s just not always seeing the puck. It happens, we all have bad days and with everything else that is going on with the Colorado Avalanche unfortunately it’s Grubauer’s numbers that are looking bad for it.

Which is why I am saying to let Frankie play. Teams play differently in front of different netminders. And when he’s in net, the Avs seem to try harder since they know he’s not a tested NHL goalie. And they aren’t showing any confidence when they are playing in front of Grubauer. At this point, what could it hurt?

4.  Stay out of the penalty box.

Seriously, stop taking needless penalties. You’re overworking your fellow players on the PK, making them tired quicker, and basically giving points away.

I saw someone on twitter suggesting the Colorado Avalanche start fining the players for penalties. Now, I am not willing to push it that far, yet. I mean, we are one of the most penalized teams in the NHL, fourth out of 31 at the time of this post but some of those were atrocious calls. However, I am saying some extra suicide drills would not go amiss. I’m looking at you, Patrik Nemeth.

5. Take the shot.

Sometimes you don’t need to set up the perfect play. Sometimes you need to just keep shooting and hope for the lucky bounce, or that the goalie is expecting a classic set up they’ve seen over and over again and is thrown off by something out of the ordinary. It’s kind of like Hunter S. Thompson saying “Buy the ticket. Take the ride.” I’m saying “Take the shots. Score the goals.”

This last one is less of a resolution and more of a reminder. My dear Colorado Avalanche, just have fun. You are playing the best sport in the world in one of the best leagues ever. We haven’t given up on this you yet, and neither should you.

Times got a little tough in December but we are still in the playoff run. 2019 is ours. You all take care of this and I will focus on the list in the first paragraph. We’ve all got this.