Tuesday, August 29, 2006

 

A look at the Colorado Avalanches

I can't believe I'm actually wasting time blogging about the Colorado Crapalanche, but since Greg is going to be doing that often enough, I might as well get used to the infestation.

As of the best information I could gather, we can see that the Avalanche are yet another one of those clubs spending around $40mil of cap space to field a mediocre club.

Per HockeyAnalysis.com, the Avs are paying $4.6mil for bonuses pertaining to LAST season. Nothing worse than paying cap space for things that happened in the past. Some pre-cap contract issues are coming back to haunt the Avs, and I couldn't be happier for them.



Goaltending: The Avalanche had a cheaper, better-performing option on David Aebischer and they traded him...WHY? Well, apparently Aebischer doesn't have 'big game' experience/ability and he isn't Quebecois.

All they have is an extremely expensive, balding goaltender with a family deeply connected with the Hell's Angels. To top it off, his idea of a quality date is to cheat on his current girl with Paris Hilton. Talk about 'binning'. *ick*

A look at Jose's SV%'s over the past few seasons
2000-01: 90.9%
2001-02: 93.1%
2002-03: 90.8%
2003-04: 91.9%
2005-06: 88.2%

Hmm, can you say one fluke season? 2003-04 wasn't so bad, but Jose's true ability seems to be around the 91.0% area when you smooth things out.

Defence: Quantity versus Quantity. Brett Clark making $1.5mil? In this universe? Patrice Breezeby...oh boy... at least this unit has 8 solid NHL defensemen and depth is important in case of injuries or in case some other team is dumb enough to trade something of value for Brisebois. Jordon Leopold and J-M Liles give this unit a good bit of offence from the back end, while Klee, an old favourite of mine, may be too far past his prime to be effective any longer. Still, none of these 8 are first-line quality. It's going to take a real team effort and a lot of juggling to make this a unit that works well.

Forwards: I know Marek Svatos and his wonky shoulders normally plays on a line with Joe Sakic, so these lines aren't a great guess on my part. This forward corps has some of everything with good defensive stalwarts like Laperriere and Konowalchuk with the offensive Sakic, Tin Man, Hejduk, and so forth. The wild-cards are definitely Wojtek Wolski and Tyler Arnason. Arnason is talented and can be productive, but is also extremely lazy and it appears that the Avs may not have room for him. Wolski may get a full-time gig this season and could rip 20+ goals.

Overall: I like the Avs ability to score goals and perhaps they can make a decent producer out of Arnason. The loss of Rob Blake will hurt, but probably not as much as people would expect. The simple fact is that this looks to be a .500 team at best unless Theodore can somehow find the form he had during his one dream season. If Theodore can't regain his game, the Avs are sunk.

Just another team for the Canucks to walk over on the quest for the cup, eh!

Comments:
Over half their roster is GROSSLY overpaid.

They're gonna be bad for awhile.

Now if we can get Detroit to follow them off the cliff...
 
Excellent analysis Jes, as a Av's fan I find nothing to disagree with here. It's unbelievable what they're paying for some of this "talent". No wonder Pierre Lacroix bailed on them when he did, he's dug them a salary cap hole that will take at least another season or two to dig out from under.
 
Svatos has yet to sign, which is also going to put the Avs in salary cap trouble. I know Giguere would love to get rid of Brisebois, but as you said, who wants him?
 
I'll make sure to get an Avs sweater with X PEON on its back.

- Duc
 
How does Tyler Arnason have an NHL job while Lubo is left out in the Czech cold? There is no acceptable explanation for this.
 
The sad thing is I can't disagree with any of this. I mean, I will have plenty of trash to talk, but yeah, they're gonna be mediocre. The Brisebois signing may be the worst thing in the history of things. And they could desperately use Lubo Vaic.

Now, I realize I'm still getting used to the Gőlbez lingo, but who's "Tin Man"? Turgeon? Brunette?

And, since it's expected of me: October 8th. The night Roberto Luongo's confidence is irrevocably shattered.
 
"Tin Man" is a long time nickname of Turgeon's, and I certainly didn't come up with it. Think "Wizard of Oz"...

As for Vaic, he's obviously been blackballed from the NHL just like Lubos Bartecko and Robert Dome :( Some anti-Slovak activity is goin on
 
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