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Matt Calvert’s “Re-education” about Hockey Paying Big Dividends

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Courtesy Matt Calvert

Over the last few years, Avalanche management has endured more than a few jibes from those who have called it “Columbus West”, with many imports from the Columbus Blue Jackets having found their way into employment with the Avs.



Jared Bednar was involved in the Blue Jackets’ system for years. So was assistant GM Chris MacFarland and a host of players, including everyone from Jan Hejda to Fedor Tyutin to Rene Bourque to Andrew Bodnarchuk to Cody Goloubef to T.J. Tynan.

Matt Calvert is another ex-pat of Columbus who made his way to the Avs and…is anyone snickering about that? Calvert has been an outstanding addition to the Avs since coming over prior to last season. He was a very instrumental player in helping the Avs get to the playoffs last spring, with 11 goals and 26 points in 82 games. He was very good in the playoffs too, until they were unfortunately cut short by a likely concussion suffered in the second round against San Jose. The Avs really could have used him in that Game 7 in San Jose, but he couldn’t play.

Calvert, though, did a reassessment of where things stood with his hockey career this summer, at home in Brandon, Manitoba. Things were good – he’d just finished his 10th NHL season and had long-ago established himself as a solid third- or fourth-liner who could kill penalties and chip in offensively and be a leader on and off the ice.

But why, Calvert asked himself, couldn’t things get even better? Why not strive to get to some kind of new, improved level, even at age 29? What could he do to just make himself a better hockey player, maybe get those scoring numbers up, be a more dangerous player and not just a plugger on the depth lines?

Calvert has a couple of buddies from back home in Brandon who are now hockey skill coaches. After plenty of internal deliberation, Calvert came to something of an epiphany: “What if I just basically went back to school to re-learn the game of hockey? Why can’t an old dog learn some new tricks?”

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