So It Begins!

Hola Avarinos! It’s playoff time! Welcome to the Dog and Pony Show! 

This sentence was intended to be the first sentence of this article, but this blog is rigged so it fell to fourth overall. 

Earlier today I wondered what 30 year old me would have thought about 43 year old me showing up at the beginning of the playoffs after not writing during a long and arduous regular season that culminated in a Game 81 wild card clinching Avalanche victory. Without hesitation I responded that 30 year old me would have drilled current me straight in the nuts. Just a solid steel toe right to the baby makers. 

“There’s no excuse for this, D’Albey!” I proclaimed. “Like old Jack Burton always says, you might as well play hockey in a tie.” 

——

Sooo....what has changed since the Avs exposed Nashville for the suckers they were last year? Well, I have a daughter now who I’m already training to be a two-fisted, take no prisoners goaltender. At the moment she’s sitting in the fridge punching a chicken carcass like she’s Rocky. She’ll be up with me at 5am Saudi Arabia time to drink a raw egg and watch the Avs shock the Flames. I won’t need to set an alarm, Amelia is the alarm!

But enough about my terminator. 

Let’s get to those Five Thoughts!

1. I will never tire of the “Injured Hero Returns Just In Time” narrative in the NHL because it is always shocking and invigorating. What’s that? Mikko Rantanen has returned from his sucking chest wound, (sorry, “upper body injury”), just in time to pepper the Calgary goaltenders with Finnish insults? Well then, sir, I doff my cap. 

Perkele!

If the Avalanche are to have a chance in this series they will need to get goaltending and score in bunches. Whatever brought Mikko down just in time for his absence to torpedo my fantasy team will need to take a hiatus. 

2. Speaking of torpedoing my fantasies... Jack Hughes or Kaapo Kakko would have been fun times on a feisty Avs second line for the next ten years, huh? I guess now we’ll just get to hope that one of the seventeen prospects that Joe Sakic throws a dart at at the draft pans out.  Is anyone else tired of reading “yeah, but they are a playoff team with a top-four pick”? That’s not the point! 

The Penguins tanked their way to a dynasty. The Oilers couldn’t build a ham sandwich and they still landed Connor McDavid and three other number one picks in six years. The Avalanche are still recovering from the worst season in modern history two years ago and what do they get? Oh, right, Red Wings fans pointing out that the Avs have had a bunch of first round picks over the last ten years. Great, go back to the 10th hole, Detroit. 

The talent is too watered down across too many teams these days. To succeed teams need generational or difference-making talent in several positions. That means landing number one picks and/or getting preternaturally smart at scouting. I think I can be forgiven for being apprehensive about Sakic’s ability to scout out and assemble a championship team, even if the Avs are in the playoffs this year. 

Don’t believe me? Ask Tampa and Steve Yzerman. 

Unless the Avs get lucky, I’m going to be bitter about this draft for a while. Here’s hoping they land a keeper. 

3. It isn’t a secret that the Avs have about four and a half people on the team who know where the opposition net is, but it shouldn’t take Jared Bednar tacking together a super line to get the puck past the opponent. 

Kerfoot, Compher, Soderberg, Brassard, Andrighetto, and Jost. Somebody has to do something for the Avs offense or this will be a short series featuring Matthew Tkachuk punching Avs defensemen in slow motion while Johnny Gaudreau hits on their moms. 

4. Hockey News readers already know this, but Elliott’s Friedman mentioned that there is an outside chance for Cale Makar to join the Avs blue line after the Frozen Four. It would be a crazy baptism, but I think it would be a fine introduction for the next Avalanche Norris Trophy winner. If there was ever a time to cheer extra hard for the University of Denver to beat UMass that time is now. 

Few things give me comfort like the thought of Makar sending Rob Blake-like outlet passes to sprinting Avs forwards.

5. When all things are considered, for the Avalanche to win what some are predicting will be a shootout (the silly media thinks the Avs have more than one line), Philipp Grubauer needs to continue his momentum from the stretch run. There is no other way around it. The Avs defense basically involves Eric Johnson and Nikita Zadorov hitting people in between trips to injured reserve. The Landeskog-MacKinnon-Rantanen line got figured out by the league two months ago. And for the love of god I can’t name a single difference making Avalanche grinder who can put in a fluttering Tyson Barrie rebound on a consistent basis. Where is the Shjon Podein on this team? Where is the Mike Ricci? 

If we see a single minute of Semyon Varlamov the fun will be over. You know it. I know it. Amelia knows it. But there is hope. 

If Grubauer stays hot. If Kerfoot summons his inner Hinote. If MacKinnon finds room. If Girard and Brassard can make some moves. If Johnson and Barrie can contain and maintain. Then our boys will shock the world. 

Fingers crossed. Jerseys on. Beards are go!

Avalanche!