Adrian Dater
Let’s not be in denial about this: The Colorado Avalanche aren’t as good a team today as they were 35 days ago. Two-thirds of their normal, regular second line for most of the last, Stanley Cup-winning season, are now on other teams in the Western Conference. Andre Burakovsky is a Seattle Kraken and, now, Nazem Kadri is a Calgary Flame.
The Avalanche have lost 148 points from their lineup of a season ago (87 from Kadri, 61 from Burakovsky) and, as of yet, have not replaced them with anyone new. That is a big loss, no matter how burgundy-colored your glasses are.
Maybe I should distill this further: The Avs aren’t as good of an offensive team, on paper anyway and almost certainly not on the ice when the games start up again, as they were not long ago. Two of the team’s top five scorers are now gone.
Here’s the thing – and why I’m not too panicked about this:
Championships, as we just saw, aren’t won in October-February. They’re won when a team really coalesces, after the trade deadline, and with the right amount of good luck, health-wise, puck-luck-wise, from March-June/July.
Yeah, the Avs have a big hole now at the No. 2 center spot with the loss of Kadri. The 31-year-old was nothing short of great all year long, culminating with some incredible clutch play in the postseason despite lots of adversity (threats to his life in St. Louis, a broken thumb in Edmonton).
It’s quite possible the Avalanche will acquire a veteran to play some center moving forward (Paul Stastny, Evan Rodrigues, Sonny Milano?). Or, what very well might happen instead is something like this, which we’ve already touched on before: Maybe the Avalanche will just do some experimenting with the second line to start the season, and adjust on the fly depending how it goes.
Maybe Mikko Rantanen will start the season as a 2C, with Artturi Lehkonen on a line with Nathan MacKinnon and Gabe Landeskog? Maybe Landeskog will start the season as the 2C and MacKinnon, Rantanen and Valeri Nichushkin will be the top line?
Maybe Alex Newhook will be given an audition as the 2C, with Nichushkin and Lehkonen flanking him on the wings?
And if none of this works out? Then, they’ll go out and get a really good center at the trade deadline. We’ve talked about Jonathan Toews. He, and many other good forwards, likely will be on the market by then. So, OK, Chris MacFarland and Joe Sakic do some chemistry-set work until then and see what happens. If nothing jells, then they can import someone by then, with more accrued cap space, and go into the playoffs with still a hell of a lineup and a new addition or two.
The thing is, the Avalanche still have what I believe is the best defense in the league. They’ll still come over the boards with Cale Makar and Devon Toews for half the game, then Josh Manson and Sam Girard and Bo Byram and Erik Johnson. Good luck skating against those six guys for 60 minutes.
The fact is, the Avalanche don’t need to score too many goals to win games still, despite the losses of Kadri and Burakovsky. Lehkonen figures to put up more points in an enhanced role, and Newhook probably will too. Add in youngster Oskar Olausson, and the top six might still be just fine.
Yes, the Avalanche have a new No. 1 goalie in Alexandar Georgiev and – if I’m being honest – that’s more of my concern moving forward than the second line. I think he’s got talent, but he’s unproven, and goaltending is still the most important position in the game.
But anyway…I think we were all mentally prepared to lose Kadri, and today it happened. Seven years for him? Yeah, that’s too much. I think Avalanche management was smart not going that long on trying to get him back. Listen, I’m one of Kadri’s biggest supporters (check out my clips from a year ago, when lots of people were calling for him to be traded because of his playoff suspension), but seven years? No, too long. Calgary almost certainly will regret the length of that deal.
But the fact remains: his loss is substantial, in the here and now. It’ll be interesting to see what the Avalanche’s Plan B without him will entail.