NHL Season Recap - Colorado Avalanche

Colorado Avalanche

2016-17 season: 22-56-4 Did not qualify for playoffs	Head Coach: Jared Bednar (2016)
7th Place Central Division	General Manager: Joe Sakic (2013)
14th Place Western Conference	AHL Affiliate: San Antonio Rampage ECHL Affiliate: Colorado Eagles
Draft Position: Will have the greatest odds in the NHL Draft Lottery

Top Forwards

POS	Age	Name	Points	Goals	Assists	+/-	CF%
C	21	Nathan MacKinnon	53	16	27	-14	51.9
C	26	Matt Duchene	41	18	23	-34	51.0
RW	20	Mikko Rantanen	39	20	19	-25	49.5
LW	24	Gabriel Landeskog	33	18	15	-25	52.8
C	22	Mikhail Grigorenko	23	10	13	-14	47.2
LW	30	Blake Comeau	20	8	12	-19	50.8
RW	35	Rene Bourque	18	12	6	-19	48.1
RW	39	Jarome Iginla	18	8	10	-21	50.1
RW	23	Sven Andrighetto	15	5	10	0	50.4
C	31	Carl Soderberg	14	6	8	-26	46.5

Top Defensemen

POS	Age	Name	Points	Goals	Assists	+/-	CF%
D	25	Tyson Barrie	38	7	31	-34	50.0
D	36	Francois Beauchemin	18	5	13	-14	47.9
D	28	Erik Johnson	17	2	15	-6	51.2
D	33	Fedor Tyutin	13	1	12	-25	46.8
D	26	Patrick Wiercioch	12	4	8	-18	46.7

Top Goaltenders

POS	Age	Name	Games Started	W/L Record	Shutouts	GAA	Save %
G	24	Calvin Pickard	48	15-31-2	2	2.98	.904
G	28	Semyon Varlamov	23	6-17-0	1	3.38	.898
G	27	Jeremy Smith	8	1-6-1	0	3.54	.888
G	21	Spencer Martin	3	0-2-1	0	4.36	.865

Trades Made During the Season

What They Acquired	Team They Traded With	In Exchange For
D Cody Goloubef	Columbus Blue Jackets	D Ryan Stanton
LW Cody McLeod	Nashville Predators	C Felix Girard
Conditional 2018 4th RD Draft Pick	Los Angeles Kings	RW Jarome Iginla
FWD Andreas Martinsen	Montreal Canadiens	RW Sven Andrighetto

Impending Free Agents

POS	Age	Name	2016-17 Cap Hit
D	33	Fedor Tyutin	$2,000,000
LW	32	John Mitchell	$1,800,000
LW	26	Gabriel Bourque	$800,000
D	27	Cody Goloubef	$750,000
G	27	Jeremy Smith	$675,000
LW	35	Rene Bourque	$650,000
LW	24	Brendan Ranford	$625,000
D	26	Mat Clark	$600,000
C	28	Jim O’Brien	$600,000
RW	29	Mike Sislo	$600,000
G	27	Joe Cannata	$575,000

Draft Needs

• The Avalanche have seven draft picks in the upcoming draft including two fourth round picks. They realistically need a little bit of everything, especially a right winger, a right-handed defensemen, and a goaltender of the future.  In this draft, however, the top six ranked prospects as ranked by NHL's Central Scouting are all centers and the Avalanche are pretty much guaranteed to pick no worse than five.  If they get the first or second overall pick Nolan Patrick and Nico Hischier are almost guaranteed to be the first two players off the board. Patrick has been the consensus number one overall prospect for a year now while Hischier has climbed the prospect ranks consistently with a strong season in the QMJHL.  Neither project to be as talented or as impactful as Connor McDavid or Auston Matthews but both could develop into true number one centers.  With the Avalanche potentially trading Matt Duchene this offseason, the team could have a hole to fill at the top of their forward group.  Patrick or Hischier could be that replacement for the future.

What I Said About Them Before the Season

• I thought that the Avalanche replacing Patrick Roy with Jared Bednar, after Roy's surprising departure right before the season, would be beneficial to the team's success in 2016-17.  Roy didn't implement much of a system during his tenure behind the bench and the team failed the past two seasons.  I thought that the team would improve quite a bit over their 39-39-4 record but that their record may not necessarily be much better.  This means that I thought that individual players would see development that their Corsi would be better but that it wouldn't translate to wins.

Success/Failure

• Big Failure - This isn't a team that was trying to tank this season.  They entered the season absolutely trying to make the playoffs.  They have had a top ten draft pick five of the past seven seasons and have failed to capitalize on it, despite having two of the most electric offensive players in Matt Duchene and Nathan MacKinnon.  The Avalanche are the first team since the '99-00 Atlanta Thrashers to finish with under 50 points and that Thrashers team was its first in franchise history.  It seems nearly impossible to finish with below 50 in today's NHL because of the loser point but the Avalanche managed to accomplish said feat.  The team as a whole was terrible as they finished with the worst shooting percentage and second worst save percentage in the league.  Their defense was really bad and their goaltending was abysmal and there seems to be on real end in sight.

Offseason Needs

• I think that the first things the Avalanche need to do are to replace Joe Sakic as GM with someone who doesn't have such a vested interest in the franchise and also replace Jared Bednar. This season's struggles weren't Bednar's fault but he seems to be in over his head and moving in a new direction can't hurt.  They also need to finally move on tanking and rebuilding this roster group.  They have discussed trading Matt Duchene and Gabriel Landeskog this past season but never moved on it and it's time to pursue those transactions.  Nashville or Carolina would be excellent trade partners for Colorado as the Avalanche need to get NHL-ready top four defensemen in return and both of these franchises of those to offer.  Duchene will yield them a larger return but and it has been rumored that they want an NHL-ready defenseman, a top prospect, and a draft pick as minimum of a return for Duchene and a return for Landeskog wouldn't be much less.  Losing either or both of these players will certainly hurt the Avalanche but currently they are wasting their prime years on a middling franchise that won't be competitive anytime soon.  The Avalanche also need to figure out their defense situation which has some reasons for encouragement in Nikita Zadorov and Tyson Barrie but they desperately need a quality puck-moving defenseman.  They also need to figure out their goaltending situation, which is a position of problem as Semyon Varlamov can't stay healthy and Calvin Pickard and Jeremy Smith most likely aren't good enough to be the franchise future.  It's time to finally sell off their veteran players, recoup what value they can, and start this process over again.

*All stats and information came from hockey-reference.com, rosterresource.com, spotrac.com, NHL.com, hockeydb.com, and eliteprospects.com*