It’s not all rainbows and sunshine in Avalanche land. Although they possess a handful of the most talented players in the NHL, they’re not perfect. No team is, really.
Yesterday, we took a look at three reasons to look forward to the Avalanche season. There’s probably more than three reasons, but we’re sticking to three for now. This is a really talented team that should cruise to the playoffs for an eighth straight season. Making it to the playoffs isn’t good enough, though. With the talent on this team, people expect another Stanley Cup, and there are some concerns about this roster heading into the season. What exactly are those concerns? Here’s a few.
The Situations Surrounding…You Know
I don’t even have to say their names and you all know exactly who I’m talking about.
Can the Avalanche win a Stanley Cup without Gabriel Landeskog and Valeri Nichushkin? To be frank…no, I don’t think so. This team has some elite players on their roster, but Landeskog (or the last version of Landeskog we saw) and Nichushkin are their two most versatile forwards. They both do a little bit of everything. We know the record the Avalanche have without Nichushkin in their lineup, and it’s not great. That’s what will make the first month of the season so fascinating.
Landeskog says he’s going to come back, and I believe him, but no one really knows what type of player he’ll be if he does return. Two years without playing NHL hockey is a long time. And then you have Nichushkin. He’s eligible to be reinstated on Nov. 13 from his suspension, but there’s no guarantee that happens right away. Will he be welcomed back into the locker room? My understanding is that there are still a lot of people upset after how things went down in the playoffs last year, but it varies from person to person.
The difficult part is that we’re probably still a little ways away from getting any clarity on these two, so the questions will linger a little bit longer.
Goaltending
If we’re being honest, you could probably say goaltending for about 75% of the NHL. Unless you have a consistently elite goaltender, and there’s only a handful of those in the league, you’re probably always a little worried about what you’ve got in net.
Alexandar Georgiev was wildly inconsistent last season, and that might be putting it lightly. He also had to shoulder the load for most of the season without a backup that the organization could trust until the All-Star game. Will Justus Annunen lighten his load a little bit this year? And if he does, do we see a better version of Georgiev? Heading into last season, I thought Georgiev was going to have a great year. That didn’t happen. He was definitely better in the postseason, but he’s got a lot to prove in the final year of his contract.
Annunen was great last year once he was called up, but now teams have some video on him and can adjust. Will he be able to repeat what he did towards the end of the season? If he can, you feel a bit better about what the Avalanche have in net. Not just for this season, but for the future.
Small Blueline
It’s probably a safe bet to say the Avalanche understand that their blueline is a little undersized, seeing as how they told teams they weren’t interested in moving Josh Manson over the summer. He’s the only defenseman on the blueline bigger than 6’1″.
A lot of that is by design. The Avalanche are a team built on speed, and they clearly have a preference for guys that can skate and move the puck. Even all of their top defensive prospects are on the smaller side. And make no mistake, this is a very talented defense. During the regular season, a lack of size likely won’t be an issue, but can the team survive in the playoffs with a smaller defense? I’m a believer in Erik Brannstrom, but a blueline that could have both him and Sam Girard in the top six would be…interesting.
If you look at recent Stanley Cup winners, including the Avalanche back in 2022, they all had a few big guys on the blueline. Right now, Colorado really has just one, although a guy like Cale Makar will throw his body around if needed. Even Calvin de Haan, while a little bigger than the other depth defensemen on the roster, isn’t exactly a bruiser. Will that work when the playoffs roll around? We’ll find out in a few months, and really, the playoffs are all that matter with a group like this.