Pavel Francouz to LTIR, but for how long?

Pavel Francouz was put on Long Term Injured Reserve today and that’s just not good, no matter how you slice it.

The Avs now can spend Francouz’s $2 million cap hit over and above the $81.5 million NHL cap ceiling – and their noses are just about scraping the ceiling as it is. But spend it on what? It’s a really bad market right now for buyers when it comes to available goalies. Trades involving goalies – decent, proven goalies – are very hard to make.

I’ve asked the experts at our partner, PuckPedia, about this and I’m told that by putting Francouz on LTIR, the Avs can retroactively have him as qualifying for the 10 game/24 day rule that any player put on such a list must sit out. So, theoretically, Francouz could come off LTIR at any time, since the Avs have already played more than 10 games – though they haven’t had 24 full days on the season yet.

Since the Avs are not in a very forthcoming mood these days when it comes to injured-player timelines for returns, we simply don’t know when Francouz will come back. What we do know is the Avs currently have a crisis at the backup goalie position. Adam Werner, as of yesterday anyway, was on the regular roster as the backup to Philipp Grubauer. Adam Werner hasn’t played a competitive hockey game in a long time, dating to last spring. Hunter Miska, who is 0-1-1 in his two starts, was on the taxi squad. That could change at any moment.

But the Avs don’t have a bona-fide NHL goalie as a backup right now. They’re in a condensed season with some tough division competitors. So, it’s a damned-if-they-do, damned-if-they-don’t scenario for the Avs right now. You don’t want to burn out Grubauer playing him too much. But you don’t want to just give games away either, not in a shortened season.

The Francouz injury was/is one that just is kind of a killer, because there just aren’t many good alternatives when it comes to extra goalies. Of the four games the Avs have lost (three in regulation, one in overtime), Miska was in net for two of them.

We’ll just have to see how this story keeps playing out.