The Colorado Avalanche had a busy Day 2 of the NHL Draft, going ahead and drafting 10 players into the organization. The likelihood of most of those players ever stepping foot onto Ball Arena ice in an Avalanche sweater isn’t that high. However, there is one key factor that you have to consider.
The lower each player is drafted, the lower the pressure is on them. Most of these players are going to either spend many years developing in college, and several will maybe make it up to the AHL level. Sometimes, that’s all that some players can ask for. It’s a tough league to get your foot into.
Right now, there aren’t any glaring needs for the Avalanche so that they have to bring up these newly drafted players immediately. It isn’t often that the NHL works that way. They might get a game here or there early on in their career, like Nikita Prishchepov (who got 10 games as a rookie but spent another 22 in the AHL. In fact, in my opinion, coaches should show the Avalanche’s new players Prishchepov’s film from when he was called up. It was very impressive despite recording no points.
What the Avalanche rookies have the luxury of doing is developing in other programs for a couple of years and then coming up once Jared Bednar and whoever else is involved feels like they are ready for the next level. It’s a patience game.
Colorado has the privilege of putting Nathan MacKinnon, Cale Makar, Martin Necas and others onto the ice. They also filled some depth areas with a couple of veterans while shipping off Valeri Nichushkin. There truly is no rush for anything.
The team has been labeled as having one of the worst prospect pools in all of the NHL, and while there is talk about some concerning traits—or a lack of important traits—this is the time for those players to work on their craft.
The Avalanche are in a championship window and don’t have any reason to push their newest draftees into the AHL level immediately. Maybe if they had a first-round pick, that would change, but that didn’t come to fruition no matter how much anyone called for that to happen.
So, you can read all the poor draft grade comments from experts, but just remember, patience could be key in finding out whether or not the draftees will amount to anything at the higher ranks.
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