Five Questions Facing the Avs at Training Camp

It will be the training camp that nobody sees. No fans, no media, not even the team broadcasters. Welcome to Avs Training Camp, 2021.

Because of ongoing restrictions, only the players, coaches and a very limited number of team staff will be allowed into Family Sports Center when Avs camp begins Sunday morning. Us media will be allowed to interview the coach and some players via Zoom, but that’s it. (For regular-season games, us media will be allowed in the building, along with the morning skate. Well, some media, at least, and Colorado Hockey Now is one).

With the official training camp roster coming out soon, I wanted to fill some of the time with….drum roll please….

5 QUESTIONS FACING THE AVS AT TRAINING CAMP

Are there any real potential “battles” for jobs? – As I see it, there’s really only one: between Tyson Jost and Logan O’Connor for a top-12 spot at forward. I see the top three lines being: Landeskog-MacKinnon-Rantanen, Saad-Kadri-Burakovsky, Donskoi-Compher-Nichushkin, Calvert-Bellemare-????.

Jost or O’Connor? Because of injuries, both Jost and O’Connor played regular shifts at the end of the playoffs in Edmonton. Assuming everyone is coming into camp healthy and ready to go, one of those two won’t be in the starting lineup Jan. 13 against the St. Louis Blues. Jost or O’Connor might face some real competition, too, from others. Maybe Martin Kaut wows everybody at camp and forces his way in the lineup? Maybe Shane Bowers does?

The only other battles I see in camp are for: seventh and eighth D-men on the depth chart. Connor Timmins figures to rank highly in that contest, but maybe Bo Byram (once the World Juniors are over) can challenge. Nobody quite knows just what the taxi squad will look like just yet, but I think both of those young D-men will be here for the full season, or at least playing pro hockey in the organization (it remains to be seen whether a guy like Byram will be allowed to play with the  Eagles moving forward).

Who is going to play with Cale Makar on the top pairing?

As colleague Scott (Mac Daddy) MacDonald reported the other day, Jared Bednar might have already tipped his hand that Devon Toews could be alongside Makar.

Toews is a speedier skater than Makar’s former partner, Ryan Graves. It may make more sense to pair Toews with him, for sure, but obviously Bednar will get a better handle on that as camp progresses. One thing we know about Bednar: he isn’t afraid to mix and match personnel.

If Graves plays with Erik Johnson, that gives Bednar a big lefty-righty combo, but leaves him with a lefty-lefty pairing of Sam Girard and Ian Cole. I don’t think that’s a big deal, and I think Cole and Girard might be OK together. You’ve got the grinder and the puck-rusher together, doing their thing.

Should we be worried about Philipp Grubauer’s health? 

This is a nebulous question and something you can ask about any player. But the fact is, we’re all gonna be worried about Grubauer, at least at the start of the season. Are his lower-body injuries – which sidelined him at times in the regular season and playoffs – fully repaired? What are the risks of reinjury?

No doubt, the team and Grubauer will say they aren’t worried. But we’re all gonna worry for a while, until we see him move around and play regularly.

Is J.T. Compher the best option as third-line center?

I don’t see him being unseated in this role, but there could be some real pressure on Compher to have a big camp, to solidify that position. Maybe Jost has a huge camp and Bednar decides to go with him at 3C – which he’s played before? Maybe Shane Bowers wows everyone and Bednar takes a chance on him and bumps Compher down the depth chart?

Compher is coming off a 31-point season, which is fine for a third-liner. His defensive game has had some question marks, though, and he’s never been over 50% in his career on faceoffs (last season, it was 47.7%). He’s got to get those faceoff numbers up. Faceoffs matter.

Is this team still not big enough and therefore still injury-prone and/or vulnerable to bigger opponents?

I thought one of the Avs’ biggest problems in the playoffs against Dallas was getting too hemmed in their own zone by bigger Stars players. Of course, the biggest problems came in later games, when the team was decimated by injuries. So, is it unfair to say the Avs aren’t big enough to compete when games get more physical? I guess we need to wait and see more on that, but it’s still a legitimate question to ask.

Fact is, this team just lost probably its biggest and most physical player (Nikita Zadorov). The book on the Avalanche is to hit them, and hit them some more. Opposing teams will do this. Are the Avs up for the fight, in the figurative if not literal sense?