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PostPosted: Mon Nov 28, 2016 7:15 pm 
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So the running joke in Av-land has been the ongoing mystery as to what has happened with top prospects J.T. Compher and Chris Bigras. They've both been out of the lineup for about a month now and there has been absolutely ZERO news coming out of San Antonio or Colorado as to their status. Their injuries couldn't have possibly come at a worse time as both most assuredly would have seen time in Denver by now given the injuries ravaging the big club of late. They are both sorely needed right now. Unfortunately Avs fans have absolutely NO idea what injury has befallen them. They won't even specify whether it's upper- or lower-body. Seriously, the last report on Bigras was listed as a (?BI). :roll:

But lo and behold...WE HAVE A SIGHTING.

https://twitter.com/sarampage/status/80 ... wsrc%5Etfw

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THEY'RE ALIVE!!!! THANK HEAVENS!!!!!

That's Bigras on the right in case you actually care, and Compher's the smiling ginger.

Someone on HF speculated that Bigras is actually hiding his right hand behind that shelter dog. It seems a bit much but look closely, he really does have that hand hidden inside his jersey sleeve. It could be severed for all we know.

I tell you what, we have reached peak Pro Hockey if indeed an organization is using a fucking antlered shelter dog to conceal an injury. :lol: :chris18:


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PostPosted: Mon Nov 28, 2016 9:32 pm 
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Minor-league trade: Avs send AHL D Ryan Stanton to Columbus for AHL D Cody Goloubef.

https://twitter.com/Aportzline/status/8 ... wsrc%5Etfw

Really this is probably more to help out injury-riddled San Antonio than it is for anything else. That and the organization as a whole could use some more right-handed shots on the blueline.


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PostPosted: Wed Nov 30, 2016 12:30 pm 
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Pretty awful, lackluster loss to the Preds last night. Avs have now dropped 4 games in a 5-game homestand. :fffffuck: :chris18: :chairshot:

And it appears Jared Bednar is done playing nice guy. While he didn't name names, he said some guys out there were "passengers." Most are willing to bet he was lumping Carl fucking Soderberg in there, who has been a near-complete waste of time since signing a long-term, lucrative deal last offseason.

So frustrating right now. While the underlying numbers are actually improving, this team looks so very slow, soft, and uninspired night in and night out.


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PostPosted: Thu Dec 01, 2016 8:38 pm 
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Man, I can't imagine Joe Sakic is in any sort of trouble, but things are looking bad under his watch. Really bad.

The latest headache--Eric Gelinas, acquired at last year's deadline during Colorado's inexplicable push to make the playoffs by bolstering the roster with such luminaries as Gelinas, Shawn Matthias, and Mikkel Boedkker, was put on waivers today. If he gets claimed, that means the Avs will have absolutely, positively, ZERO to show for those three trades. Matthias and Boedkker both decided to sign elsewhere, and while the Avs didn't give up a ton in those deals some of those lost assets are actually coming back to haunt them. Prospect Kyle Wood is one of the best scorers in the AHL at present and Arizona used the compensatory pick acquired in the Boedkker trade (they declined to sign Avs 1st rounder Connor Bleackley) as part of a package deal to snag Jacob Chychrun in the 2016 draft. Gelinas got hurt right away playing for the Avs last season, and has been stuck as the 6/7 guy under Bednar. What's strange is that Gelinas's supposed strength is on the power play, and he was definitely acquired with that in mind (as was Boedkker). But yet, Bednar really hasn't used him in that capacity.

You lump that in with the fact that the Avs for three consecutive seasons have signed a 35+ veteran who hasn't come close to meeting expectations. Brad Stuart is gone, but his full cap hit remains after a buyout of his final season since of course, it was a 35+ contract. A similar difficulty exists if the Avs wish to buy out Francois Beauchemin, and of course if they don't, they'll have to protect him in the expansion draft because he has a no-move clause (which would be very apropos of his skating ability this year). Jarome Iginla has been better of late, and his deal expires after this year, so there's not much point continuing to complain about him.

I think I'll save my continued disdain for Carl Sortaberg and Blake Comeau for a different post.

Avs made two more moves in addition to waiving Gelinas: They recalled Gabriel "The Other" Bourque and prospect Samuel Henley. Not much to say about Henley except that he's a really big dude. But by all accounts he's earned this callup, Avs fans will take whatever they can get.

Don't know whether to be happy or just plain dismayed that PTO signee Rene Gary Wayne Bourque is the Avs' leading goal scorer as of right now. Gotta give the guy credit, I don't think the Avs have ever had anyone as good at deflecting shots as he is. Without him the Avs would be making the Vancouver Canucks offense look like the #99-era Oilers.


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PostPosted: Fri Dec 02, 2016 11:36 am 
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Av-merican wrote:
Man, I can't imagine Joe Sakic is in any sort of trouble, but things are looking bad under his watch. Really bad.

Without him the Avs would be making the Vancouver Canucks offense look like the #99-era Oilers.
I sort of equate Sakic with Linden. Both adored by the fanbase, heroes as players but neither have any experience running an NHL franchise - and it shows. Seems to have been more of a PR stunt than actual hockey appointment by ownership groups looking to put butts in seats and connect with fans on an sentimental level.


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PostPosted: Sat Dec 03, 2016 7:08 pm 
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Avs giving whatever farmhands they can a shot to see if they can right this flagging ship. First it was A.J. Greer, then Samuel Henley, now it's former Panthros pick and little Christian sparkplug Rocco Grimaldi. Lines will be as such.

Grigorenko-Duchene-Grimaldi
Bourque-MacKinnon-Rantanen
Comeau-Mitchell-Iginla
Martinsen-Soderberg-Colborne

Pretty expensive 4th line there. Soderberg definitely deserves to be there, not entirely certain it's wise to keep Colborne there though.

Pairings will probably remain the same, which is unfortunate.

Tyutin-Johnson
Wiercioch-Barrie
Zadorov-Beauchemin

Barrie has regressed BIG TIME this season, and I'm not sure why Bednar keeps him with Wiercioch. That pairing just plain doesn't work. I also don't know why Barrie seems like he's playing so restrained, whether it's the coaches trying to change his style of play or he's just not with it. But they need him and Johnson to play smarter hockey if there's any hope of pulling out of the basement, because it sure as hell ain't gonna be Beauchemin who saves the day.


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PostPosted: Mon Dec 05, 2016 2:36 pm 
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Holy spit...a five-game homestand that was supposed to turn this team's flagging fortunes ends in absolute disaster. 0-4-1, one fucking point out of a possible 10. And the one point was earned against the Canucks, who are amazingly in 26th place. The Avs now sit alone in the league basement with 19 points. And Avs fans are in full meltdown mode, which is understandable.

Pretty much everyone is convinced that the core needs to be gutted, with one of Duchene or Barrie getting dealt. I still believe this core hasn't been given a legitimate shot as the supposed talent surrounding them is absolute garbage. I can't see how anyone can honestly say the core is the problem. Mind you, they too have not played great, but I fail to see how they've been put into a position to succeed.

This of course has not stopped squawkers like Adrian Dater from pushing the narrative that Patrick Roy was 100% right about the core. Much as I have defended Dater in the past he and others of his ilk are just frustrating the hell outta me.

The real mystery is trying to figure out what in hell has happened to Tyson Barrie. After signing a pretty lucrative deal this offseason he has all but disappeared. And it isn't just who he's being paired with, he just isn't the same player. I don't know if he's just having a hell of a time adjusting to Bednar's system or there's some undisclosed injury involved, but he's gone from being bad to abysmal during this homestand.

I really thought this would be a bubble team...now I'm thinking Nolan Patrick is likely going to be wearing burgundy and blue next season.


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PostPosted: Sun Dec 11, 2016 1:42 am 
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Holy fuck...can't get much worse than tonight. Unfortunately I feel like a panic trade is brewing.


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PostPosted: Sun Dec 11, 2016 11:41 am 
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Something fundamentally wrong with how the team is built. Deal all the vets.

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PostPosted: Sun Dec 11, 2016 9:04 pm 
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E.L. wrote:
Something fundamentally wrong with how the team is built. Deal all the vets.


Depends on what you mean by "vets."

Iginla, Beauchemin, Soderberg? Yes. All of them should leave. Right now.

Duchene, MacKinnon, Barrie, Johnson? No. Absolutely not.

The narrative created by Patrick Roy is really taking hold, but yet no one who subscribes to the notion that the core is bad and must be broken up is in any hurry to deal away, waive, or otherwise rid the roster of the truly shitty players, they just think dealing away a core player for talent and then adding it to the pile of shit that remains will somehow makes things better. No. It won't. Dealing away Matt Duchene for Travis Hamonic and a pick/prospect won't do anything except plug one hole and open up a giant one up front.

Avs management just needs to acknowledge they fucked up badly. Too many slow skaters, too many soft players, and too much excrement on the roster. And then they need to get to work. Since Iginla and Beauchemin have NMCs they cannot be waived, so look to deal them and until they're dealt, bubble wrap 'em. They'll waive their no-moves in no time. Soderberg should get the same treatment, though I don't believe he has any trade protection, he just has a shitty contract. Call the scrubs up from San Antonio and what happens, happens.

Goaltending is a huge issue going forward. Varlamov and Pickard have yet to show anything resembling consistency this entire season. Some nights they're Vezina-caliber. Other nights, like last night, they're sieves. Don't know how that problem gets solved, but it's not the main issue plaguing the Avalanche, so it can wait at least until the expansion draft.

The one mystery that continues to perplex me is what in fuck has happened to Tyson Barrie. He doesn't look hurt, he just looks completely lost out there, and I'm just not sure why. The coaching staff has got to figure out what the hell is going on there and fast.


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PostPosted: Mon Dec 12, 2016 12:05 pm 
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By vets I mean older guys who might be worth something on the trade market.

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PostPosted: Mon Dec 12, 2016 4:44 pm 
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E.L. wrote:
By vets I mean older guys who might be worth something on the trade market.


Wellllllll...that's the problem. :lol: Who the hell wants a washed-up 39-year-old Jarome Iginla? Who in hell wants a broken-down and no-longer-skating-at-an-NHL-level Francois Beauchemin? Who wants an overpriced and over-termed Carl Soderberg? All three of these guys are slow and ineffective. The only deal that expires this season is Iginla's, and both he and Beauchemin have NMCs. Oh, and Beauchemin's deal runs one more year around $4.5 million after this season, and a buyout would carry the full cap hit next year because it's an old fart contract. Incidentally, Brad Stuart's full cap hit is on the books this season for the very same reason. The good news is someone told me Joe Sakic said in a recent interview that he will never, ever sign a 35+ vet to a multi-year deal ever again. Too bad it took him three swings and three misses in three consecutive years before he finally learned his lesson.

Best case scenarios, the Vegas Golden Whatevers take Soderberg off their hands in the expansion draft. I don't see anyone stupid enough to take Soderberg in a trade, not even Jim Benning. McPhee won't take Beauchemin in the draft even if he foregoes protection, so best case there is that he waives his NMC and gets traded at 50% retention to some other team where he can slog his way around the ice in a different uniform until 2018. But I've no earthly idea who that would be.

Then there's Cody McLeod, whose contract isn't backbreaking, but who has spent most of this season in the press box.

And then there are John Mitchell and Eric Gelinas, who are also on relatively inexpensive deals, but both were exposed to waivers and there were zero takers. I read that Sakic tried like hell to deal Mitchell this offseason and found little to no interest. Ironically, Mitchell and Iginla I believe lead the team in possession. :lol:

So that leaves us with some "tweeners" like Blake Comeau (meh) and Mikhail Grigorenko (a promising meh). I think Grigs could possibly blossom much like Sam Gagner appears to have in Columbus, it just won't be in Colorado. His deficiencies (slow speed, soft play) get magnified a thousand fold on this squad. Besides, the Avs signed Joe Colborne, they don't need another big, slow, soft forward who takes plays off. They should just deal him for whatever they can.

As for goalies, no idea. Varlamov's trade value is at an all-time low right now, so dealing him would probably not be wise, and despite multiple shots to pick it up and run with it, Calvin Pickard has yet to prove he's anything more than a decent backup.

I assume the "core" going forward is Duchene, MacKinnon, Landeskog, Johnson, Barrie, and Rantanen. I think you can build a winner around those guys. The Avs did okay building that core. They just absolutely shat the bed in trying to surround that core with talent. Things are STARTING to turn around, but not in time to save this season. That doesn't mean they should panic and go nuclear on the roster...they just need to admit their mistakes and do everything they can to get rid of said mistakes. If they can jettison some of these awful players they should do so now and call up whomever they need to call up. A.J. Greer showed more promise in a couple games than guys like Soderberg have all season long. Give the chances to players who actually WANT them.

I really hope Jared Bednar is the guy for the job. So far it's hard to say whether he's any good at the NHL level yet because he's been given such an uproariously BAD team, and one that's banged up to boot. He's doing a lot of things right, but I still can't help but wonder if it's because of him that Tyson Barrie's play has completely fallen off a cliff. Maybe we'll hear later on a la Pacioretty that he's been playing through an injury all this time and he'll magically score four goals the very next game!


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PostPosted: Mon Dec 12, 2016 4:53 pm 
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Oh, and the Avs won 3-1 against Toronto a day after giving up the most goals in franchise history since moving to Denver.

They still didn't look great by any means, in fact they got positively pelted by the Leafs, especially in the 1st, but managed to get a good performance out of Varly and scored two good-looking goals (Rantanen and MacKinnon) and an empty-netter to get a 3-1 victory. MacKinnon showed a glimpse as to why he was a first overall pick, getting a stick in the face by Komarov and instead of flopping to the ice in a heap continued to deke the rest of the blue jerseys on the ice and score. Rantanen reminds me in some ways of Jaromir Jagr...he's not at that level, mind you, but he's a big guy with good hands who plays a slow, but smart game. I'm looking forward to seeing him grow some more.

A lot of praise was also heaped on Nikita Zadorov, who apparently entered the game ANGRY. Even dropped the gloves with the Mattress Salesman when he took a run at (I think) Andreas Martinsen. He's a project for sure, but may end up being the best player snagged in the Ryan O'Reilly trade.

The thing that drives me nuts is that Matt Duchene is stuck in a checking role shadowing guys like Auston Matthews because Carl Soderberg is too slow and too horrible a hockey player even though that's precisely what he was brought on to do. It's no surprise the Avs are the worst offensive team in hockey when their best players are stuck in roles they're not made for, while the support players who are being paid to do those jobs can't get it done in any area of the ice.

Oh and while he's snagged himself some SHGs, I wish they didn't have to use Nathan MacKinnon so much on the penalty kill.

The fat still needs to be trimmed post-haste, but they at least showed some heart and bounced back from what most believe to be rock bottom of a nightmarish season.


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PostPosted: Mon Dec 12, 2016 5:26 pm 
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Matt Martin Mattress Salesman?

MacKinnon "but he's a big guy with good hands who plays a slow, but smart game"? I thought he had a shit ton of speed?

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PostPosted: Mon Dec 12, 2016 5:43 pm 
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Bosc wrote:
Matt Martin Mattress Salesman?

MacKinnon "but he's a big guy with good hands who plays a slow, but smart game"? I thought he had a shit ton of speed?


No, MacKinnon's way fast. And frankly his hockey IQ is probably the worst part of his game.

I was talking about Mikko Rantanen. :lol:

And yeah, Matt Martin's the mattress salesman.


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PostPosted: Mon Dec 12, 2016 6:22 pm 
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They're paying the price for not drafting well after their lottery picks.

2009 was great. Since then, the only useful guys they've developed are Landeskog, Pickard, MacKinnon, Rantanen, with the hope that Bigras and Greer become something soon.

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PostPosted: Mon Dec 12, 2016 7:33 pm 
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E.L. wrote:
They're paying the price for not drafting well after their lottery picks.

2009 was great. Since then, the only useful guys they've developed are Landeskog, Pickard, MacKinnon, Rantanen, with the hope that Bigras and Greer become something soon.


Don't forget Tyson Jost. He and Canucks pick Brock Boeser are currently tearing up the NCAA.

Yeah, Rick Pracey was Pierre Lacroix's go-to guy in the draft, and he was awful. And it took years before people realized it. Based on what I've read the disconnect really took place when Roy and Sakic were dead set on taking MacKinnon in 2013 and Pracey didn't even have him in the top five. Pracey was out not long after. Dude was ridiculously myopic--drafted a ton out of the OHL/WHL, and avoided Euros like the plague. If Roy and Sakic did anything right they went out of their way to acquire/draft/develop players from all over, even if they were longshots like Borna Rendulic.

2014 was also a complete and utter loss. They drafted Conner Bleackley in the 1st round, then traded his rights as part of the package for the Mikkel Boedkker rental. Coyotes used the compensatory pick as part of a package to trade up into last year's draft and snag Jacob Chychrun. They ended up trading or not signing virtually everyone from that draft. And what's worse, one of those guys (Kyle Wood) is lighting it up in the AHL for Arizona.

The good news is, I suppose, that they're now fully bought-in when it comes to analytics and their lower-round picks don't look right off the bat like throwaways (hello Dillon fucking Donnelly). Kids like Beaudin, Meloche, Boikov, Nantel, etc. might not pan out but at least they sure seem like legit prospects. And Greer, yeah, Greer actually looked like he belonged in his short stint in the NHL this season.

And as for Compher and Bigras...well, once they're healthy I guess we'll see. :chris18:


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PostPosted: Mon Dec 12, 2016 8:35 pm 
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Av-merican wrote:
Bosc wrote:
Matt Martin Mattress Salesman?

MacKinnon "but he's a big guy with good hands who plays a slow, but smart game"? I thought he had a shit ton of speed?


No, MacKinnon's way fast. And frankly his hockey IQ is probably the worst part of his game.

I was talking about Mikko Rantanen. :lol:

And yeah, Matt Martin's the mattress salesman.


Whoops, missed the sentence starting with "Rantanen" :lol:

Why is he the mattress salesman?

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PostPosted: Tue Dec 13, 2016 9:34 am 
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Bosc wrote:
Why is he the mattress salesman?


Dammit, I can't find it but last year or something like that he was part of some weird promo that involved a life-size picture of him on a bed or something. Chris probably remembers it better than I do, or I could have hallucinated the whole thing.


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PostPosted: Thu Dec 15, 2016 1:40 pm 
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Avs drop another one at home, this time to the orange-hot Flyers, who have now won 10 straight.

Colorado was in it despite a terrible 1st period, but in no time the game went south. First, a horrid defensive zone turnover by Ray-Nay Bourque, then Brayden Schenn casually walks right around a plodding Francois Beauchemin and it's 4-2. Avs notched one more but still fell short.

Philly is this year's Dallas. A team that scores in bunches and also gives up goals in bunches. In short, they're pretty fun to watch.

Avs are this year's...I don't know. They suck. They just suck, especially at home.

About the only good thing going on right now is that thanks to speculation by the media, Jarome Iginla is a supposedly hot commodity on the trade market. If there's a taker and Jarome's willing to waive his NMC (and how could he not be at this point?) then Move. Him. Now. I'd say move Francois Beauchemin even sooner, but no way in hell would anyone want him.


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