Alternative Universe Avs (NHL w/ fictional players)

[BirdWatcher]

I'm not going to go into the same detail about this entry draft as I did the last one. I will quickly go through pick by pick for the Avalanche below with brief descriptions of the players and their potential roles on the club.
But first I'd like to discuss a bit the learning experience component of all of this for me. Basically, I don't yet have much of an idea about what reasonable expectations are regarding drafts in terms of how the NHL IRL works and how FHM works. I have a better sense of what to expect from, say, a 7th round draft pick in baseball, where there are far more draft rounds, than a 7th round pick in the NHL Entry Draft. I know what the expect from a high draft pick 18 year old in baseball (which is to say, many years of seasoning in the minor leagues with a good chance that they never live up to their potential). My sense is that most every other major team sport in North America operates in such a way that at least 1st round draft picks are expected to have some sort of impact on the team that drafted them- on their top level club- the season that follows the draft.
But how true is that of 2nd round picks, 3rd round picks, etc.? How long does the average 5th round NHL Entry Draft pick play in a minor league before being contracted by the team but also before getting a taste of the NHL? I really don't know.
And what about the FHM game engine? The draft just ended and the one before it in my save seemed very deep in talent. There were 5-star potential talent players available at least into the 4th or 5th round. This would never happen in OOTP. And it makes me think that it is likely that a large percentage of these players will never reach their perceived potential in FHM. But I don't know that for sure. (If they do, though, I have to wonder if there is going to be a talent oversaturation in my league, or if these two draft classes are abnormal, possibly having something to do with the beginning talent in a fictional save.)
At this point I should probably state that these are largely rhetorical questions. They are also questions I am gradually researching and trying to find answers to. But in terms of how FHM works, part of the fun for me is to test things by just doing.

So at this stage of the Avs development, I am going not exactly all-in on a youth movement, but close to that. We have established players, some a bit older like Brian Hughes and Sherwood Sharp, some still pretty young like Aleksandr Dugin and Michal Lezak, and some other relative veterans in roles, but the chances are very good that a number of very young players will be getting a good deal of playing time this upcoming season.

Before I go more into that though, let's actually talk about the Avs picks in the just completed draft:

1st Round pick: Our first pick, 29th overall, was Center/re James Wilson. Wilson wasn't on my radar for the draft but that was mostly because he was supposed to be long gone before we got our first pick. Wilson was expected to be drafted 2nd in the draft. And he is now not only the top ranked forward prospect but the #1 prospect overall in the NHL. Our scouts see him as already a 4-star player with 5-star potential and #1 on our depth chart at his position. How realistic is all of this? I don't know, but we'll start to find out soon. He is a 2-way forward with strong passing skills and offensive read abilities as well as strong defensive read skills and positioning. He is a team player, has great balance, and overall pretty solid physical and mental ratings. He's not the premium goalscorer we were intending to target, but we couldn't pass him up at this spot in the draft.

2nd Round pick: I was eyeing some goal-scorer/sniper types for my 2nd round pick. And then I did a silly thing. I got caught up in all of my research around the draft and in crossing names off my positional lists and didn't realize it was my turn and accidentally pushed the button to let the AI pick for me. Whoops! So our next pick was LD Joni Bjorkqvist. Not my pick, but our pick nevertheless. Which isn't to say he isn't a good player. He is now #6 on the depth chart among defencemen for the Avs. He is 2-way defenceman (of course, he's an Av), he is a strong leader (probably a future alternate captain at least), a good skater (great acceleration, good speed), excellent shot blocking and defensive read, and great shooting range.

3rd Round pick: With our 3rd pick we took the top Goalie available in Loren Sweeney. He is very durable, reportedly good under pressure, has great reflexes and handles rebounds well. He is likely our future starting Goalie. At this point he already is listed as 2nd on the depth chart after our free agency acquisition Andriy Polischuk. He isn't going to take Terry Ross' place yet and will start the season in the AHL, unlike Wilson and Bjorkqvist who will almost surely be on the active roster when the season begins.

4th Round pick: We actually had 2 4th round picks though at the moment I can't quite remember what trade we got the second one from and don't feel like looking that up right now. With the first one we took RD Mirza Begovic. The Avs don't have any top 100 prospects among defencemen but Begovic comes closest at #114. Begovic is a sturdy defensive defenceman with great stamina and defensive positioning, but is also an excellent passer and good puckhandler with great shooting range and not bad shooting accuracy. He is also considered a big-game player.
Our second 4th round pick was LW David Williams. Williams was another player who was expected to be picked much higher. In fact, he was expected to be picked in the 1st round at #22 and fell to #124. This might have something to do with concerns about his injury proneness. I don't usually like to draft the very injury prone, but this was sort of a free pick and I decided to take a chance on this very talented, two-way player. He is ranked as the #39 prospect and is 4th on our depth chart at LW. We will give him a chance to play this year and hope he can stay healthy and live up to his billing.

5th Round pick: Our next pick was LW Austin Foreman. Foreman is now 6th on our depth chart at his position and he is the first player on this list so far who has not yet been signed to a contract. We will probably let him play this coming season with his team in the QMJHL and monitor him for the future. He's a good skater, has good vision on the ice, another guy who profiles as a 2-way forward.

6th Round pick: In the 6th round we took RW Derek Bentley. Bentley is a big, durable, tough kid who profiles as an agitator, a power forward, a grinder. His puckhandling is strong, he's a team player, and he hits hard on defense. Might be a decent 4th liner eventually. We'll let him develop a bit and see how it goes.

7th Round pick: Our last pick was C Tom Ferrell. Ferrell is another power forward/grinder type. He is listed behind Nikolay Ivanov, at 6th, on our depth chart at that position. He's another guy that we aren't rushing to get on a contract, but he profiles as big-game player with NHL potential- possibly as high as 2nd or 3rd line.

This is going long so I'll discuss a few things that are related to what the draft in terms of roster moves, etc. in the next post.

[BirdWatcher]

With the draft in the rear view mirror, and based upon updated depth charts for the team, we had some roster decisions to make as well as a few players from last year's draft who we hadn't gotten under contract yet and decided it was time.

To clear some roster and cap space we looked to move a few veterans. We were able to send 29-year old RD Timothy Duffy and his 4.6 million dollar contract along with 33-year old C Mikhail Veryugin and our 6th round pick in next year's draft to Toronto for their 4th round pick next year. Neither Duffy nor Veryugin did much for us, with the more expensive Duffy being particularly disappointing in his 30 games played, and they were both quite low on our depth charts.



We also signed C Lance Williams, our 5th round draft pick from last year, to an entry level contract and he is expected to be our 4th line Center/re. Williams currently ranks as the 95th best prospect in the NHL.



With these moves in place we are largely ready for the upcoming season in terms of our roster and depth pieces.

[BirdWatcher]

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:

[BirdWatcher]

After suffering another humiliating loss to begin the season (see below), the Avs started to show signs of coming to life, if in fits and starts. We rattled off a 5-game winning streak mid-month but then lost 4 of 5 to end the month.



Here are updated standings (sorry, forgot to capture an image of this before I played the first game of December, so one of our wins here wasn't in November):




And team stats:





The board is still on our side, but this time at least we earned it a little more:

[BirdWatcher]

As the calendar turns over to 2024, it is becoming clear that the only race the Avs are in this season is for an advantageous draft lottery spot.




One of the casualties of this topsy-turvy season is the Avs career of Goalie Terry Ross. Things just never got right for him this season and he had completely lost his confidence and was a mess in net. While our hope was to sneak him through waivers and let him regain his confidence down in the AHL, we knew that wasn't likely and were prepared to accept the consequences. And sure enough, he was claimed by the New York Islanders, who are having their own disastrous season.



We brought up Loren Sweeney, our likely future starting Goalie, and in his first 4 games he has 3 wins and no losses with a 1.70 GAA, a .938 save percentage and a GSAA of 3.52. The move also seems to have helped starter Andiry Polishuk feel more secure in his position on the team as he has improved since Ross' departure.

Ross is probably not the last veteran Av to depart this season, as given how things are progressing it is certainly possible that before the end of the season 32-year old LD Robin Larsson and 32-year old C Jeremy Kelley may also be ex-Avs.

Apparently the Board is on board with our youth movement, which is now looking more like a full rebuild.

[BirdWatcher]

Jeremy Kelley has been offered to the New York Islanders for their 3rd round draft pick next year (we had to sweeten the pot by offering our 5th round pick). With Clark St. Croix once again feeling most comfortable at Center/re, we have a glut of players at that position and Kelley has not had a good season. With little chance of making the playoffs this year (though, to be honest, it isn't impossible yet that we sneak into the second wild card slot), there doesn't seem to be a compelling reason to keep the 32-year old Kelley.

It was more of the same this past month though we did finish up the month with a convincing 6-0 win at home against Detroit with young Loren Sweeney in net.

[BirdWatcher]

In the opening chapter of Rob Vollman's Stat Shot, in a section entitled "Building Toward a Window" he writes "building a legitimate contender for the Stanley Cup is presumably the goal for all NHL organizations. ....Consistently icing a playoff-level tam is one means to that end, but surfing controlled peaks and valleys is a way to improve the odds slightly more."

I'd like to be able to claim that this was my grand plan this season, to take the team into a controlled and strategic valley to increase our odds in the next few seasons to achieve the ultimate goal. But that would be giving me too much credit for actually having a plan, grand or otherwise.
Well, okay, that's a bit harsh. I did have a youth movement plan, I just didn't imagine that it would lead us to such a deep valley this season.

Current standings:




On the plus side, this swing towards youth has given us early indications that recently drafted Goalie Loren Sweeney is indeed a strong candidate for Goalie of the future with the club. And really, he's been our best Goalie in the now too.
Top prospect C James Nelson hasn't taken the NHL by storm, but with 7 goals and 31 assists and an average GR of 65, he has been inconsistent but has shown great promise as well.

Team stats:

[BirdWatcher]

Apologies that I got moving quickly into the offseason and put off reporting on the happenings from March onwards.

So here are the final standings and award winners for the recently completed season:




A few Avs stats:



The Avalanche were starting to put some things together in the last month plus of the season and hopefully this bodes well for next season. But of course we did fail to reach the playoffs for the first time since starting this save, and after having reached the Western Conference Finals for two straight years.

In the end, the Calgary Flames repeated as the Stanley Cup champs, winning in 7 games over the Montreal Canadiens (is that a bit better, pauwoo?).




A bit later I'll post about some offseason moves and what looks to have been a very successful entry draft for the Avs.

[BirdWatcher]

As I continue my hockey (and FHM) education, I have been learning a bit lately, from Vollman's Stat Shot, but also by listening to some hockey analytics podcasts and watching some YouTube videos on the subject, about aging curves in the NHL.
And while in the MLB analytics world the evidence seems to be indicating that a player's peak is at an even younger age than earlier believed, I am getting the impression that this is even more extremely true in the NHL, though of course there are truly gifted players who are outliers.
So while I probably was overly reliant on the development of young players this past season, I sense that the general direction of my efforts is correct.

Having said that, I did re-sign one veteran player whose contract was expiring this past offseason in LD Luke Bosum. Although Bosum turned 30 this offseason he has consistently been one of our most reliable defencemen, we are not deep at LD, and he is extremely durable. This past season, in 75 games, he scored 13 goals with 25 assists, was +14 on a bad team, and had an average GR of 65, which is nearly exactly what his GR has been in each of his 4 seasons in this save. I was able to sign him to a 3-year deal at $4.5 million per, and while I was hoping to make it just a 2-year contract, I don't feel this is a bad deal for us.

On the other hand, we traded away 31-year old C Nikolay Ivanov to the Florida Panthers for their 5th round draft pick next year. Ivanov had some good years with us and this wasn't an easy decision, but with Ivanov having dropped down to 5th or 6th on the depth chart at this position, and with his proclivity to injury, it was time to move him on.
We tried to trade 33-year old Robin Larsson (in spite of our weakness at LD), who had a dismal 2023-2024 season, but ultimately were unable to. Depending upon how our young defencemen perform this coming season, it wouldn't be surprising to see him gone one way or another, even if just on waivers.
We did let one young player move on as well in RD Craig Woodard. This was only partly intentional. I'll admit that I don't quite understand how RFA's work in the game. I have some basic understanding of the rules in the NHL around this, but I don't know how to enact those in the game. Last season I re-signed Clark St. Croix, whose ELC was expiring and who was an RFA, and I didn't see a big difference in the process from signing a UFA. So even though Woodard is thought to have 5-star potential he has severely under-performed so far for us and I wasn't entirely sure I wanted to keep him. I thought I would see if just not doing anything would trigger something in the game when another team went to sign him. It didn't. He was signed by the St. Louis Blues and to a not very expensive contract, so I probably should have just tried to sign him first. I guess I'm going to have to do a bit more research on how RFA's work in FHM.

We also let a few other less important free agents move on in LW Jack McCaffery, who played exclusively for our AHL affiliate last year, and, well, honestly I can't even remember who else since they weren't players I cared about.

Which brings us to the Entry Draft. The draft lottery, which saw the New York Islanders move up from very near the bottom to the very first pick, pushed us down from picking 8th to picking 9th. With our first round pick we chose LW Travis LaFreniere. We hope that we finally found our future superstar goalscorer with this pick. LaFreniere was projected to be the #1 pick but somehow fell to us at 9. He is ultra-durable, has great physical ratings, strong offensive read skills along with great shooting accuracy, is good at puckhandling, getting open, screening, though he's only an adequate passer. His defensive skills are certainly not shabby either, with stickchecking being a particular strength. The mental part of his game is his greatest weakness, but he's a decent team player and has good determination. Eventually he should pair well on the 1st line with last year's top pick, playmaking, 2-way C James Nelson. And like Nelson before him, after the draft LaFreniere found himself ranked not only at the top of the forward prospects list, but as the #1 NHL prospect overall.



Speaking of that first forward line, with our 2nd round pick we got RW Matthew Watts, who is now the 71st best prospect in the game and could develop into the 3rd member of what could prove to be a very potent first line for us in the future. Watts is a playmaker, a great passer who can feed LaFreniere, and has great vision on the ice, and he looks like a future team Captain with tremendous leadership and a team-first approach. Watts is less physically strong than either LaFreniere or Nelson, but he is the most agile and speedy of the three with great acceleration on the ice. He also is strong defensively as well being a good perimeter shooter. It might take a season or two, but I can see these three being a force as a first line in the NHL.



We added a good 2-way defenceman in Jiri Rehounek in the 3rd round. Rehounek is a great passer and also looks like he could do some goalscoring for us.



Those are the three players in this draft most likely to get significant playing time as Avs in the upcoming season, but we also got a couple of other talented defencemen (Stefan Stevens and Jason Surla) who will be allowed to develop as bit, as well as some wingers in RW Ty Moyers and LW Aymeric Blais with potential for the future. We did also add a bit of depth at Goalie when we picked Paul Bork in the 5th round.

The Avalanche have now moved up to 6th on the prospects system rankings. Now the trick is finding the right mix, developing the young players, and building around the right ones.

[BirdWatcher]

First, a look at the season preview:





And this is more like it. The Avs start the season with 4 straight wins and even though we then drop 5 in a row, the team recovers to win 5 straight to end the month, including a pair of shutouts on the road, back to back, against San Jose (4-0) and Washington (6-0).
There is a lot of season ahead but at least it's a promising start.
Especially since some of the finest performances have come from our youngest players. Second year C James Nelson is leading the team in goals and points. Rookies Matthew Watts and Travis LaFreniere are both playing well so far. And most impressively, Milo Holland, the Avs first round draft pick in 2022, who had a decent if unspectacular rookie campaign and then was very disappointing last season, is probably the best non-Goalie on the club thus far.
Speaking of Goalies, both of ours are off to good starts.

Players off to the worst start, at least in terms of average Game Rating, are LW David Williams (56), who admittedly was re-called from the AHL mid-month, veteran LD Robin Larsson (57) (as expected), second year RD Mirza Begovic (58) in just 7 games, and veteran RW Aleksandr Yermolayev (60).

It's a start, anyway. And not a bad one.

[BirdWatcher]

Trying not to get ahead of ourselves as it is still very early in the season, but the rebuild/youth movement just might be ahead of schedule.
The Avs are off to a very fine start, and in this past month the rookies- Travis LaFreniere and Matthew Watts got even better, now both with GR of 68, tied with Milo Holland and just behind Aleksandr Dugin (70) for second best among skaters. Our Goalies are even better, with young Loren Sweeney having an 82 GR (2.22 GAA, .930 save pct., 9.79 GSAA) and veteran Andriy Polischuk at 80 GR (2.33 GAA, .929 save pct., 8.43 GSAA).
Second line C Bobby Newsome continues to be more of a goalscorer than expected, leading the team in goals with 9 and points at 19, with an average GR of 65 and a defensive GR of 71, just behind fellow Centre's James Nelson and Lance Williams in DGR, all 3 the best DGR's among forwards on the team.

It has been a fun start to the season and it is encouraging to see the young players start to fulfill some of their great potential.

[BirdWatcher]

And then December came along and slapped us in the face to remind us we aren't there yet.



The Avs won just 3 games in the month while losing 10. We drop down to 5th place in the Central and sit just outside of the playoff picture at this point. Of course, still a lot of season left so we will hope for a rebound in the new year.



There have still been positives. Although young Goalie Loren Sweeney took a small step backwards this last month, veteran Andriy Polischuk was still solid. Second year LD Joni Borqkvist has been one of our best players and possibly our best on the defensive end. And rookies Matthew Watts and Travis LaFreniere are still near the top of the list on the team in terms of GR, still just behind Aleksandr Dugin and Milo Holland (likely to get an extension on his contract soon) among skaters.

[BirdWatcher]

And the struggle continues in January, as the Avs win 5 games but lose 8, including losing their last 4 games of the month. A few of our losses were humiliating, including a 7-0 loss to Dallas at home and a 7-1 loss to Arizona on the road.




For unknown reasons, head coach Jared Bednar seems to have lost confidence in Goalie Loren Sweeney, in spite of Sweeney being considered one of the most promising young net-minders in the NHL. When veteran Goalie Andriy Polischuk was forced to the Injury List with a sore knee, and prospect J.T. Soronzonbold was brought up for the first time from the AHL, it was the unproven Soronzonbold who got all the starts. Granted, Soronzonbold did quite well: in 5 games he had a 2.32 GAA, a .930 save percentage, and 3.48 GSAA.

A major injury to C Bobby Newsome certainly didn't help. Newsome has a broken thigh bone that will keep him out for much of the rest of the season.



Good news is that 21-year old LW Ken Rechlicz has been playing very well and is turning into a very solid two-way forward with some scoring ability.




Off the ice, the Avs announced that they had reached agreement with LW Milo Holland, possibly the MVP of the team this season, on a 3-year contract extension (a bit over $4.1 million per).



Word is that RD Josh Hishon is next up for a contract renewal.

[BirdWatcher]

The goal at this point is simply to make the playoffs, even if that is as the second wild card. We have been jockeying for that position lately, although with our most recent loss we fall again into the top spot outside of the playoff picture in the Western Conference.




We did extend RD Josh Hishon, considered one of our team sparkplugs, this last month. James Nelson has battled a series of minor injuries this season (he profiles as generally durable) but is quietly turning into our best player and a possible future superstar in the league. We certainly play much better when he is on the ice. Matthew Watts is looking more and more like our future team captain and has just been getting better and better as the season progresses.
Goalie Loren Sweeney finally started to get more starts again this past month and is in the process of redeeming himself in Coach Bednar's eyes.



As the youngsters develop, we are keeping our immediate expectations moderated, but while the season hasn't been a smashing success, there still seem to be ample reasons for hope in our future.

[BirdWatcher]

For the second straight season the Avs miss the playoffs. Though the team played a bit better down the stretch we fall a bit short and only finish with a slightly better record than the prior season.

There were signs of maturation among some of our young players (as well as decline for some of our former stars like Brian Hughes and Sherwood Sharp) but now things need to start to come together on the ice and relationships need to solidify, line chemistry needs to build, and we probably need one of our talented but under-performing Goalies to step up and seize the primary starters role (hopefully the 20-year old Loren Sweeney).

A basic look at the Avs season:




And the final standings:




Award winners:




In the playoffs, the two-time reigning champs, the Calgary Flames, were bounced by the upstart Arizona Coyotes in the first round. The St. Louis Blues, who won the President's Cup, advanced to the Western Conference Finals before losing to the Chicago Black Hawks, as always led by superstar LW Fletcher Patton and 2-time Vezina winning Goalie Mads Christensen. Chicago barely got by the team with the second best record in the NHL, the Vancouver Canucks, in a 7-game 1st round series, needed another 7 games to defeat Arizona, and then finally won in 7 against Vancouver to go on to the Stanley Cup Championship Series. Where, sure enough, they won in 7 games over the Toronto Maple Leafs.
Chicago becomes the first non-Canadian team to win the Cup in this save thus far.

[BirdWatcher]

The Avalanche saw a few veterans move on in free agency, in particular 33-year old LD Robin Larsson and 27-year old RW Aleksandr Yermolayev.
On the other hand, the Avs did get potential free agent 26-year old RD Michal Lezak signed to a new 6-year deal. And 21-year old RD Josh Hishon, who has emerged as our best scoring defenceman, was inked to a 2-year deal.

Having earlier extended 21-year old LW Milo Holland, who had if not exactly a breakout season then surely a step forward season, the Avs are unlikely to make any more off-season moves as they head into the third, and pivotal, season in their youth movement rebuild.

After 2 straight NHL Entry Drafts that were talent-rich and deep, this year's Entry Draft is unlikely to move the needle much for the Avs, or for many teams for that matter, in the near future. Surely some stars will emerge from this draft class, but it was largely a weak class, or at least that is how it looks at this point in time.
The Avs 2nd round pick, RW Ted Tripp, could get some time on the active roster this coming season, but while he is basically NHL-ready, his ceiling doesn't look that high. He could be one of the better defensive forwards for the Avs and that is likely an area where the team could use some strengthening. The highest upside among this year's Avs draft picks probably belongs to RW Adam Shibuya, but the 19-year old Spiritwood, Saskatchewan native needs quite a bit of development still before he can play in the NHL. He profiles as another 2-way forward whose primary strength is on the defensive end.

Our first round pick, #9 overall, was RW Kevin Gilbert. This was, once again, a mistake as I accidentally hit AI Pick before I realized it was my turn to pick. While he might turn into a decent NHL player, I think we could have done better. I will say that in all of my years of playing OOTP, I've never accidentally picked the wrong guy in the draft, never accidentally relinquished my final authority over making the pick (though surely I have intentionally allowed my head scout to make picks). While this is on me to pay more attention to what I am doing, I do think that there is an opportunity for some UI improvement in this area of FHM. It shouldn't be this easy to not notice it isn't your turn to pick.

[BirdWatcher]

I meant to talk a bit more about the future outlook in the last post, but ran out of time so I'll go into that more now.



The Avalanche in this save, both in our most successful and less successful seasons, have not been driven by a dominant first line. We have relied more on depth than on having one very high-powered, high-scoring line and while we have had some very good players we haven't ever been a superstar-driven club. And while philosophically I am inclined to continue that into the future, I do have hopes that we have the makings of a more potent and dominant first line of forwards coming together in LW Travis LaFreniere, C James Nelson, and RW Matthew Watts. They haven't played together enough yet to have chemistry as a group and the extent to which they do play together is somewhat out of my control as I am only the GM, but I can see big things for these three before long. While both Nelson (already arguably our best player) and LaFreniere are the more heralded prospects, both having at one time been the #1 overall prospect in the NHL, it is Watts who I have the greatest hopes for in terms of being the glue that binds the team. Other than physical strength, where he is adequate but nothing special, Watts has exceptional physical qualities and he is also a born leader and consummate team player. I see him as the Captain before long. He also has next-level hockey smarts (amazing offensive read rating, extremely good defensive read rating) and is a tremendous playmaker. He will need to play alongside more physically strong and aggressive players to do his magic (Nelson and LaFreniere somewhat fit the bill, but not entirely, admittedly) but with a few gifted scorers around him he could drive an offense.

If we can keep C Bobby Newsome healthy for most of next season (he only played in 45 games last season after a full 82 the season before), when paired with LW Milo Holland and veteran star RW Aleksandr Dugin, the 2nd line shouldn't be much less productive than the 1st.

On the potential 3rd forward line, LW Ken Rechlicz was better than expected in 2024-2025 and he will be given every opportunity to prove that wasn't a fluke. C Lance Williams is perhaps a bit underrated and did a fine job filling in for the injured Bobby Newsome last season on the 2nd line. There are more questions at RW as Bill Reynolds hasn't exactly proven himself yet and the younger Ty Moyers, who also got time at C last season, might push him for this spot. Williams, Rechlicz, and Reynolds all profile as strong 2-way forwards while Moyers is a bit more offensive minded.

The Avalanche also have the potential for a more physical, bruising 4th line depending upon the development of Austin Foreman (who would provide the only scoring talent on this line and might more likely end up a 2nd or 3rd line LW/RW), C Tom Ferrell, an agitator, grinder, power forward profile, and RW Derek Bentley, the most aggressive of the three and a real grinder who is strong on the puck.

The #1 defencemen pairing looks like LD Joni Bjorkqvist, a rushing defencemen with strong defensive skills and leadership as well and who can certainly put the puck on net with some regularity, and RD Josh Hishon who is a talented 2-way defenceman with QB abilities.

The likely #2 defencemen duo for at least the next few years is LD Jiri Rehounek, a more offensively minded player, and RD Michal Lezak, who has 2-way skills but is more of a shutdown defensive presence.

For the time being, the #3 defencemen line would be veteran LD Luke Bosum, with strong goal scoring and playmaking skills, and veteran RD Sherwood Sharp, also more offensive minded. But when more defense is needed, watch for youngster Mirza Begovic to begin pushing these older players for ice time and 2-way defenceman Stefan Stevans is likely to get his chances as well.
The Avs also just got top defenceman prospect Jason Surla under contract and it shouldn't be long before this more offensively-minded, playmaker cracks the active roster.

At or before the end of this upcoming season, the Avs will need to make decisions on several key players whose contracts will be running out. Almost surely they will ink C James Nelson to a rather expensive extension, but they also see veteran LW Brian Hughes and his nearly $7.5 million contract fall off the books. With 32-year old Goalie Andriy Polischuk and his $5 million contract being allowed to exit also, they will have some money to re-sign young Goalie Loren Sweeney. Two young defencemen will be targeted for extensions in Joni Bjorkqvist (need to keep him) and Mirza Begovic (want to keep him, but not disastrous if we don't). In addition to Nelson, two other Centre's will also need to be extended if possible- Bobby Newsome and Lance Williams. Among wingers Ken Rechlicz will almost surely be a priority to re-sign while whether Bill Reynolds or Oskar Axelsson will stay will have a lot to do with their performance this season.

At the moment the Avalanche are well below the salary cap but with young players developing and reaching the ends of their ELC's, it is time to start sorting out who to prioritize for the future and who to give up on. Granted, at the end of the 2026-2027 season veteran RD Sherwood Sharp's $10.2 million contract will expire and so that will provide some relief with younger defencemen taking his place on the roster. Aleksandr Dugin's $8.5 million deal ends the year after that and given that he will be approaching 32-years old at that point he will likely also be coming off the books.


My expectation for this upcoming season isn't grand, but I do think with a bit more experience under the belts of our young players we should be able to secure a playoff spot after a 2-year drought.
What the ceiling is for this team with its current roster is I don't pretend to know, but I remain hopeful that we are moving in the right direction. We just need to see that start to show up more on the ice.

[jumpSeat]

Originally Posted by BirdWatcher

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As a long suffering Canucks fan, I can only say... Dream on!

[BirdWatcher]

Originally Posted by jumpSeat

As a long suffering Canucks fan, I can only say... Dream on!

[BirdWatcher]

Not a disastrous opening month of the season, but more of the mediocre same.




The good news is that the trio of James Nelson, Travis LaFreniere, and Matthew Watts are playing as expected, which is to say very well. Ken Rechlicz continues to surprise with better than expected play. And LD Joni Bjorkqvist has been the best of our defencemen.

We are also scoring a lot more goals so far but also giving up far too many and our penalty killing has been abysmal.

And after a 7-1 loss to Chicago on the next to last day of the month, I lost patience with our handling of the Goalie situation. Seeing Coach Bednar go all too often to veteran Andriy Polischuk and not giving the much younger but superior Loren Sweeney an opportunity to be the primary starter at the position, I felt I needed to do something. So when we learned that Columbus was shopping 35-year old LD Edgar Maldonado, it dawned on me that a swap of Polischuk for Maldonado, a defensive defenceman, might be a good move. I couldn't just trade Polischuk for a draft pick, which would have been better, because as the team with the 31st highest player payroll (off the 4th highest budget), without coming perilously close to the salary floor.
We had to sweeten the pot a bit by giving them our 5th round draft pick next year and the rights to RW Jonathan Mowry, who was our 5th round pick this year.



So now Sweeney is our main Goalie and we brought up prospect J.T. Soronzonbold as our backup. Given that these are the only two Goalies under contract we need to sign a few free agent Goalies to have in reserve in the AHL.