The Avs were a bit up and down in the month of January and while they retain 1st place in the Central Division, just barely over their biggest rival Winnipeg, they drop to 3rd overall in the Western Conference.
And whether it was one of the causes or simply one of the symptoms of this uneven play for the team, the Goalie tandem also had some real ups and downs this month, with
David Mencl having some struggles early in the month and
Terry Ross getting more starts, at first successfully, and then
Ross too had some stinkers later in the month.
On the season,
Mencl has now appeared in 25 games with a 17-7 record, a 2.18 GAA, a .922 save percentage, and an 8.75 GSAA (0.36 GSAA/60) all of which would put him on pace for career bests.
Ross has appeared in 29 games, with a 16-10 record, 2.55 GAA, .916 save percentage, and 5.40 GSAA (0.19 GSAA/60), most of which, particularly the GSAA numbers, are on pace to be worse than he has been the previous two seasons.
The Avs have been mostly free of serious injury this season and that is not an insignificant factor in their good play. Currently
Clark St. Croix is out with what a severe calf laceration that he could play through but to be safe with this young former top prospect he is on the Injury List. At this point it appears that he might not be fully recovered for 2-3 months, so we are hoping that with a complete shutdown he might heal a bit more quickly or at least will avoid more serious injury.
The All-Star Game was this month and the Avs didn't have any participants. This made me think about something I just read in Vollman's Stat Shot: "whether a team is built around scoring goals or preventing them, whether it's based on a few franchise players or a well-balanced lineup, or whether it is linked to elite goaltending or generational scorers, goals are goals."
Partly because of the team I inherited and partly as a personal philosophy, the Avs fit into the descriptions above most accurately as a well-balanced lineup. Sure we have a few standout players in
Brian Hughes,
Aleksandr Dugin, and
Sherwood Sharp (the first two I inherited, the third I signed as a free agent) but we don't have any of the league's biggest names. We have a deep group of competent role-players, we have been built from the defencemen corps forward, and our team contains a majority of balanced two-way players.
Here are updated standings and stats leaders and team stats:
