November 16, 2009 Selling the Avalanche TFP Columnist
Dennis Bernstein isn't ready to jump on the Avalanche's bandwagon just
yet.
[LOS ANGELES, CA] --
Other than massive rash of injuries that has hit NHL superstars over the
first six weeks of the regular season, the biggest story is the
unlikely start of the Colorado Avalanche.
I concurred with the rest of
the NHL at the season’s start; I picked them to engage in a season
long death match with the beleaguered Phoenix Coyotes for the bottom
spot of the NHL’s Western Conference.
I also picked the Bruins to win it all folks. Lucky for me I'm not a
gambler.
While the Coyotes have been competitive and sit above the line for
playoff consideration at present, the Avalanche amazingly stand atop
the Northwest Division at the season’s quarter pole. With a new
general manager (former specialist assistant Greg Sherman) and coach
(Joe Sacco, not to be confused with Mr. Socko), the management team
had turned over 100 percent in the off season. On ice, the player is
the most recognizable player in the history in history of the Colorado
franchise; Joe Sakic took a look at the roster in June and decided it
was time to start the countdown for his first ballot Hall of Fame
induction.
Sherman, in an effort to get his roster younger and less
pricey, dealt away veteran Ryan Smyth to the Los Angeles Kings for
rising defenseman Kyle Quincey and underachiever Tom Priessing. By
virtue of their poor performance last season, the Avalanche was in
position to draft a keeper in Center Matt Duchense with the third
overall pick and got the Eric Otters’ Eric O’Reilly in the second
round.
Duchene performed as expected in training camp and O’Reilly
surprised in September. With the void of talent on the varsity, both
18 year olds found themselves on the opening night roster with the
latter becoming the youngest player ever to play in the history of the
Colorado franchise. Things got even more curious when game ten of the
regular season rolled around and neither one of the teenagers where
sent back to their junior team - it was big boy hockey all the time.
On the veteran front, Paul Statsny returned from an injury racked
2008-’09 season that saw him miss 37 games and while former first
round pick Woltek Wolski is a wizard of the shootout, he struggled to
get 18 goals in his last campaign starting the whispers started that
the first round pick spent on the Polish winger was wasted.
To make
matters worse, one of their mainstays over the years Milan Hedjuk
potted 27 goals but a minus -18 rating started banging the drums about
him being in the twilight of his career at 33 years old.
With all that bad news, line combinations and defensive pairings
weren’t the biggest concern as October rapidly approached. The
Avalanche arguably had the worst goaltending in the league with the
combination of Peter Budaj and Andrew Raycroft strapping on the pads
every night during the lost season. The latter was replaced over the
summer with the acquisition of Craig Anderson but no one expected the
substitution to move the needle between the pipes; it was more like
repositioning the deck chairs on the Titanic.
Mr. Anderson came out of
a situation where he was shared the net minding duties for the Florida
Panthers along with Tomas Vokoun. The pair almost steered the Panthers
to a playoff spot with Anderson posting a more than respectable 15-7-5
record and three shutouts coupled with a .924 save percentage and a
2.71 goals against average. Florida GM Randy Sexton had other ideas in
the off season and offered a three year free agent deal to former
Martin Brodeur caddie, Scott Clemmensen. Left without a deal, the
former 2001 third round selection of the Chicago Blackhawks gladly
signed a two year deal with Colorado that averages $1.8 million per
season but probably devoid of any bonuses for winning the Vezina
Trophy. Although the defense had recognizable names with Adam Foote,
Scott Hannon and John-Michael Liles, a cursory comparison of the
Colorado roster against the contenders in the West by most would have
the Avalanche badly trailing the pack.
And then, a funny thing happened.
They started to play the games on the ice and not in the fantasy
leagues.
The Avalanche pounded the San Jose Sharks in Denver opening night and
it's snowballed ever since. They’ve played the highly regarded Chicago
Blackhawks to a stand still with all of their three matches going to a
shootout and took advantage of Detroit’s stumble of out the gate to
defeat them twice. They’ve been great at home, through 19 games
Colorado has one home loss.
Individually, Statsny has stepped into the
unenviable position of replacing Joe Sakic and produced at a point per
game rate. While Duchene was thought to emerge as the Colorado
candidate for the rookie of the year, it’s been O’Reilly who has burst
on the scene in the season’s first quarter. He’s battling John Tavares
for the rookie scoring lead and is strides ahead of the rookie pack in
plus/minus rating.
Anderson for his part is making his best effort to shrug off the
anonymity that’s cloaked him for his first six NHL seasons. His effort
is the overriding factor that's propelled the Avalanche to the top of
the Western Conference, Incredibly, the word “Vezina” and “Trophy”
seem to be popping up adjacent to his name, Cinderella has appeared
early in the NHL marathon and she’s residing hard by the Rocky
Mountains.
So when I recently appeared on the Anaheim Ducks post game show, Ducks
Calls with Josh Brewster (you can hear the rebroadcast at Josh’s site
www.hockeytalk.biz) and the discussion turned away from the Ducks and
to the NHL in general, I was asked for my opinion on the feel good
story that is the Colorado Avalanche.
Somewhat eloquently, I went on the record and said. “Nice start.” Uh
oh, doesn’t sound good for the Avs, does it?
The reality is that with two 18 year-olds holding prominent roles on
this team, the success of this year’s model of the Avs is short term.
I define short term as right around the 40 game mark and you can set
your watch to it. With the schedule contraction due to the Olympics,
Duchene or O’Reilly have never played these amount of games they’ll be
asked to play through February. In a non-Olympic season last year, I
saw the Kings’ Drew Doughty fade in the stretch as the rigors of
playing nightly against men took its toll. The same will occur with
the Avs kids and the rest of the roster can’t support a decline in
their play.
Could Craig Anderson morph into the next Tim Thomas, an ugly duckling
journeyman who turned into a swan of a goalie? He could, but those
occurrences happen once a decade and Anderson doesn’t have a 6-foot-8 defenseman named Chara standing in front of him either.
While Colorado has avoided the injury plague that’s hit the league
hard, they’ve had some chinks in the armor. Hedjuk has missed two
games with a wonky back while Liles’ shoulder injury landed him on the
Injured Reserve list until mid-November and the tag of “injury prone”
is appearing next to his name. Avs fans should pray when injuries do
start piling up GM Sherman will resist calling Peter Forsberg’s agent
for a reunion tour.
A rookie GM, a rookie coach and an average roster doesn’t equate to a
post season dance in Denver. The reality is that this team won’t
finish much above where they finished last season but the good news
for Avalanche rooters is that the progression has continued to get an
aging roster to a youthful one. An Avalanche is more likely to happen
here in Los Angeles than one appearing in the Western Conference
playoffs.
LIVING THE HOCKEY DREAM
Although I am a member of the Professional Hockey Writers Association,
my process to get to this point was unconventional. In a former life,
I was a boring accountant before deciding to start a sports media firm
with the sole purpose of getting into hockey games for free. Little
did I know the decision I made would change my personality, career and
life. The reality was that my credentials at the start were
non-existent; in no particular order they were, a C in English in
college and no course work in journalism or creating writing. While
those credentials would qualify me for a blog on hockeybuzz.com these
days, a writer’s necessary body of work a decade ago was a very
different story. In those ancient days, newspapers actually had cache
and most NHL PR department didn’t recognize that the eventual shift
away from print and to online (except for
The Fourth Period Magazine,
of course) had been initiated. So only through hard work, diligence
and tenacity did I flourish in this second career and live my ultimate
hockey dream.
Hey, that sounds like a great title for a book, doesn’t it? Living the
hockey dream?
Short story is ... a REAL writer and a good friend of mine, Brian
Kennedy, came up with this wonderful idea a couple of years ago, Last
year, he authored a great book called Growing Up Hockey and has backed
it up with a collection of stories of likely and unlikely people that
are involved in this great game.
One of the fascinating aspects of the book is the legwork that the
author had to do to get the cross section of subjects assembled for
publication. From superstars (Wayne Gretzky) to trend setters (Cammi
Granato) to grinders (Ian Laperriere), Kennedy has touched all points
on the hockey spectrum in the 336 page tome.
For the increasing number
of non-readers among us (slowly raising my hand), the book is very
quick and enjoyable because in reality it is a collection of 44 short
stories. You can get further information on Brian’s book by visiting
the publisher’s website,
www.lonepinepublishing.com but given a list
price of $18.95 and availability at most book retailers and places
like Amazon.com, it’s a great holiday gift for any deserving hockey
fan in your circle.
Dennis
Bernstein, the man behind SCORE! Media and an NHL
Analyst with ESPN Radio, is the Los Angeles
Correspondent for The Fourth Period Magazine and a Columnist
for TheFourthPeriod.com.
