Colorado Avalanche: Will Gabriel Bourque be Back?

The Colorado Avalanche front offices have to decide if they’re going to retain pending UFA Gabriel Bourque for another season or let him go.

The Colorado Avalanche have a lot of decisions to make. Well, to be honest, they’ve probably already made the decisions and informed the players. However, no one has informed us, so we can speculate.

Let’s talk about Gabriel Bourque. On Twitter and on BSN/The Athletic articles, Bourque is everyone’s favorite whipping boy. He is not a highly-skilled NHL player, and that comes out at the most annoying times.

That lack of high-end NHL skill was in evidence with his numbers this season. In 55 games, Bourque recorded 2 goals and 6 assists. In 12 playoff games, Gabriel recorded a single goal.

Many Avs fans (at least in the above spaces) have already written him off as gone for next season. Here’s the thing — though Bourque was oft-scratched last season, he made it into the lineup more often than not. And when he did, he got minutes. He even got promoted from the fourth line sometimes.

In other words, it was obvious Jared Bednar favored him.

It would be convenient to say I don’t know why Bednar favored Bourque, but there are some pretty good indications. You know what you get with a player like Bourque. He’s consistent. He checks with his legs not his eyes, as Bednar likes to say, and takes the body.

Bourque is also responsible defensively. He saw a lot of time on the penalty kill. So, no, he’s not going to make many spectacularly good plays, but he’s not really going to make spectacularly bad plays either.

His Corsi numbers weren’t great this season — 41.1 CorsiFor and -9.3 Relative Corsi. Positives would be anything above 50% CorsiFor and Relative Corsi in the positive. Like I said, though, Bourque usually played on the checking line and on the penalty kill.

I don’t know how much credence GM Joe Sakic gives to the head coach’s preferences. Obviously, in Patrick Roy‘s day, he had decision-making over player personnel as part of his responsibilities. Bednar doesn’t have the same power.

Will Sakic listen to him, though? I imagine he’d at least consider Bednar’s thoughts on the matter. After all, he’s meant to be giving Bednar leeway to guide the team how he sees fit.

Would Bednar go to bat for Bourque? Hard to say. He was definitely Jared’s guy during the season, but I don’t know that Bednar would take a strong stance on player personnel issues. I’d be more likely to see Bednar giving Bourque a fair report card and leaving the decision-making to Sakic.

The 28-year-old Bourque is an unrestricted free agent after having made $950,000 last season. I don’t think money would be the deciding factor — more likely age. The Colorado Avalanche are a young team and want to stay that way while the kids grow up together.

Personally, I don’t have such a strong opinion about whether Bourque should stay or go. I didn’t have as many forehead smacking moments with him as I did, say, Patrik Nemeth. Or even Tyson Barrie to be honest.

That said, I want to see the Colorado Avalanche keep the youth movement going. I don’t want to see a player like Bourque making the lineup over futures guys like A.J. Greer or even prospects like Shane Bowers or Logan O’Connor.

If the Colorado Avalanche part ways with Gabriel Bourque, I’d expect to see them pick up a younger version of the player in free agency. He’s just the kind of journeyman that teams love to be able to plug into their lineup.