It is here. We made it. We survived over five months, 163 days, to be exact, without hockey. Five months with no Avs seemed incomprehensible after the previous season’s stretch that went till the end of June. Thankfully, the Nuggets kept the championship streak alive for Denver, and we celebrated in June once again. But on Wednesday night, the Avs will face off against the LA Kings, and life can return to normal.
The 2022-23 Avs started the season already missing two fundamental players from their Cup run: Kadri and Landeskog. Kadri signed with Calgary, and Landeskog never returned to the lineup from his knee injury. Things only spiraled from there. Truthfully, after their injury-plagued roster, finishing at the top of the Central Division with 109 points was an enormous accomplishment. Nathan MacKinnon and Mikko Rantanen had career years and filled the gaps that Kadri and Landy left open. However, it wasn’t enough to carry them through the playoffs, and the Seattle Kraken sunk their tentacles into the weakened lines and skated away with the series win. Nathan MacKinnon was on the ice for 13 of the 19 goals the Avs scored. The big guns can only do so much, and they didn’t have the support from the other lines to defeat the newly sea-faring Kraken.
As if the Avs weren’t down enough, the news came that Landeskog would undergo a knee cartilage transplant and will miss the entirety of the 2033-24 regular season. He is confident that he will fully recover, but this type of injury and procedure is unusual for professional athletes. There is already lots of speculation if he can return for the playoffs. As far as I am concerned, I want him to recover and return in an Avalanche uniform whenever he can. Period. I don’t want to spend the entire year discussing whether he will return in time for the post-season like we did last year. He is unavailable now, and that’s it. The only good news is that his long-term injury reserve (LTIR) status frees up his $7 million salary so that the club could add additional talent in his absence. Knowing this and our lack of depth, we knew Chris MacFarland and his team would make adjustments in the off-season.
In making room for new blood on the roster, the Avs had to say goodbye to our longest-tenured player, Erik Johnson, who signed with the Buffalo Sabers. The Condor’s presence will be greatly missed: on the ice, in the locker room, and forever in the stands. The Avs also didn’t resign J.T. Compher (Red Wings), Alex Newhook (Canadiens), Evan Rodrigues (Panthers) and Matt Nieto (Penguins). We will always appreciate what they did for our team—particularly Johnson and Compher. Johnson joined the Avs in 2011, and we will never forget him for his cheery, toothless grin and as the last man on the ice with the Stanley Cup in 2022. Likewise, Compher, who had been with the Avs since his rookie year in 2016, and for scoring two goals against St. Louis in Game 6 to advance to the Western Conference Finals in 2022. Hockey is a business, but not to fans. Once an Av, always an Av, and we wish them all good luck in their new homes.
With those departures, the Avalanche have added several new names to their roster. Most notably:
Ross Colton #20 - At 27, Colton arrived with the Avs in a trade with the Tampa Bay Lightning. Colton scored the game-winning goal to win the Stanley Cup for the Lightning 2021. The two career fights Colton has happened to be against his new teammate and potential linemate, Logan O’Connor, and half of the career fights that O’Connor has been in are against Colton. I doubt this will be a locker room issue.
Tomas Tatar #90 - The 32-year-old Slovakian joined the Avs in September as a free agent from the Devils, but his name may sound familiar as a former Red Wing from 2010-17. Last year, Tatar scored 20 goals and had 28 assists as a forward with New Jersey.
Ryan Johansen #12 - Joining the league in 2011 with the Columbus Blue Jackets, Johansen, 32, has been with the Nashville Predators since 2016 and is a big two-way forward who will fill the shoes of Compher and more hopefully the likes of Kadri as a second-line center.
Jonathan Drouin #27 - A former teammate of the Halifax Moosheads with Nathan MacKinnon, the two have remained good friends, and the 28-year-old took a substantial salary cut to play with the Avs. After being selected #3 in the 2013 draft (the same year as MacKinnon), Drouin has not lived up to his junior playing career and suffered from severe anxiety and insomnia. He looks to get his game back by playing with his long-time friend and the coaching stability of Bednar.
Miles Wood #28 - Another former New Jersey Devil, at 28, Wood brings his 6’2”, 200 lb presence to the team and is a capable end-to-end player. The Avs play with speed and pizazz but certainly need more grit, and Wood should deliver just that.
Our early exit last year exacerbated the team's flaws, and the front office spent the summer addressing those issues. One question that remains is in goaltending. Georgiev is still the #1 tender, but Pavel Francouz has spent the off-season rehabbing a lower-body injury and won’t be available anytime soon. If he gets placed on LTIR like Landeskog, that will free up his $2 million salary, but for now, we hope he can return in good health. Until then, Justus Annunun will be the number two between the pipes.
Are the additions the Avs made going to be enough to propel them beyond the slums of last year’s playoff performance? Only time will tell. Either way, hockey is back, and that is better than any other alternative.