#1 spot the Colorado Avalanche need to address in the 2024 NHL Draft: Goaltender Depth
There were times when the Colorado Avalanche stepped up in spite of Alexandar Georgiev. There were some games where Justus Annunen came in and some that he started (and played very well). I’m still pressing the gas for Annunen to start more games for the Avalanche next season.
Thankfully, we did get to see some lights-out play by Georgiev in the 2023-24 postseason. After the first game against the Winnipeg Jets, Georgiev was on fire. Unfortunately, the team just couldn’t overcome the Dallas Stars in Game 6 in double overtime. It was a tight game until the very end.
I think the question the Avalanche have to ask themselves is whether or not Georgiev is worth keeping around past his contract: he’s in a contract year, making $3.4 million.
The team clearly likes Annunen, who they signed to an extension during the regular season, but even with that, he’s a work in progress.
The big thing here is that the Avalanche cannot keep surrendering so many high-scoring games. It’s not sustainable in the long-run. Other teams will figure out ways to hold them off.
Who knows, maybe they have someone waiting for their chance. We got to see Ivan Prosvetov in some games and I personally thought that he was going to be the backup, but he got sent down and never came back up. Maybe more time will help him in a year or two.
The team did just re-sign Trent Miner, but he’s all the way down with the Utah Grizzlies and won’t be ready for a couple of years.
I think the best course of action is to keep throwing darts at goaltenders and see which one(s) stay on the board. The goaltender situation is a bit scary in my opinion, and there’s always room to improve. Whether or not they do remains to be seen, but I think that they should.