I expected that there might be some growing pains with the team given how many young players were being given a chance to prove they are NHL worthy.
I didn't expect it the first month of the season to go quite this poorly though.
The Avs 9 points on the month is tied for last place in all of the NHL with the Buffalo Sabres, and we've played two more games than they have.
Here are standings at the end of October:
Avs basic stats:
While we did start with 6 straight games on the road and 10 of our 15 games were as the visitors, that isn't really an excuse for such bad performance. Yes, we also had a series of injuries, but they were all of the minor variety and mostly didn't affect front-line players. And yes, we had some tough 1-goal losses, especially near the end of the month, but then again we also suffered this embarrassment:
It wasn't all on the kids. Some of them played quite well, if not consistently so. Top prospect
James Nelson looks like he's for real, and two other young Center/res,
Bobby Newsome and
Lance Williams have had some dominant games, though also some real stinkers. The two third-year guys,
Clark St. Croix and
Craig Woodard, haven't been very good and
Woodard was recently sent back down to our AHL affiliate to try to regain his confidence. And some of our veterans, particularly LD
Robin Larsson and
Jeremy Kelly, perhaps unhappy to see much younger players pushing them down to lower lines, are not playing well at all.
But probably in goal is where things are most chaotic with free agent acquisition
Andriy Polischuk not adapting well to the team and
Terry Ross off to a tough start in his diminished role.
On the plus side, veteran LW
Brian Hughes just continues to soldier on as our most consistently valuable player. And our other two biggest stars, RW
Aleksandr Dugin and RD
Sherwood Sharp, have also played well mostly.
The board is of course furious with me for taking a Conference Finalist team and turning them into a laughingstock thus far. Having just signed me to an extension in the off-season they feel utterly betrayed, and who can blame them.
Wait, what? Did the board think we were going to be even worse than we are? Or are they just in denial, having invested more money and time into me as the G.M.? Well, either way, I'll take the temporary reprieve from scrutiny.
Also, for what it's worth, this was the pre-season preview:
