Colorado Avalanche: All in One Season

After a last-place finish in 2016-17, the Colorado Avalanche have turned things around thanks to a young core

It must’ve been tough to be a Colorado Avalanche fan during the 2016-17 season. They were the laughing stock of the NHL. Everywhere you went, fans would have an Avalanche joke tucked away somewhere.

Only Nathan MacKinnon and Matt Duchene ended up with more than 40 points, and Mikko Rantanen was the lone 20 goal scorer. They placed in the bottom five in both goals scored and goals against. The Avalanche had a shot attempt differential of -221.

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Their goaltending situation certainly didn’t help either. Calvin Pickard was their only starting option after Semyon Varlamov got injured. He did the best he could. But a .904 save percentage just wasn’t good enough.

In terms of advanced stats, the Avalanche actually weren’t terrible that season. Due to an extreme lack of depth, they were forced to play some people who really shouldn’t have been playing.

Cody McLeod played 28 games, for example, and finished with an abysmal 39.2 percent CorsiFor percentage. Among this group of players with poor advanced stats, included Andreas Martinsen, Carl Soderberg, Patrick Wiercioch and Fedor Tyutin. People were calling for general manager Joe Sakic‘s head.

But now, that’s all over. The Avalanche rebounded incredibly in the 2017-18 season. Predicting a Colorado playoff qualification would be like predicting Vegas in the Stanley Cup Finals for most people.

In one season, the Avalanche went from a laughing stock to one of the more exciting up and coming teams in the NHL. Were they rather handily defeated in the playoffs? Well, yes, but just getting there was more than anyone expected.

How did the Avalanche manage to do such a 180 over the course of this season?

The new Avalanche

Now, the Avalanche’s improvement doesn’t really have any magical secret formula behind it. They didn’t do any hardcore advanced stats digging. It’s a lot simpler than that.

To summarize, the Avalanche scored a lot more goals and had far superior goaltending. To make things better, many players witnessed overdue breakout seasons.

Most notably, MacKinnon was absolutely incredible. In 2016-17, he scored 16 goals and 37 points for 53 points. But in 2017-18, he upped that to 39 goals and 58 assists for 97 points in 74 games. This puts him on pace for 107 points. If he had played all 82 games, he would have finished only one point under Ted Lindsay Award winner Connor McDavid.

Rantanen doubled his point production with a relatively unexpected breakout season. Captain Gabriel Landeskog really looked like he was declining before this season, but he managed to capture 62 points. Defenseman Tyson Barrie also played his best season since 2014-15.

In addition to various breakout seasons, Avs games were a lot more exciting. `They recorded and allowed more shots than the previous season. Despite a -358 shot attempt differential, the Avalanche allowed 40 fewer goals than last season. This is thanks to the goaltending tandem.

Giving Semyon Varlamov the starting position was risky, but it really paid off. He finished with a .920 save percentage through 51 games, this season. Jonathan Bernier also proved to be a decent backup, posting a .913 save percentage.

This difference in goaltending is probably more explanatory than any underlying depth issue. The Avalanche were bad during in 2016-17, but bad goaltending made them terrible.

The Avalanche allowed 276 goals that season. If they had had the Varlamov-Bernier pairing of 2017-18, they would have only allowed 215. Poor goaltending often exaggerates how bad a team really is.

Even small core adjustments helped a bit. Alexander Kerfoot and J.T. Compher are good examples. However, for the most part, the Avalanche just got better. I think this says something that most have overlooked.

When you have a terrible season, as Colorado did in 2016-17, gutting the team isn’t always the answer. If you put enough work into development and are confident in your own system, problems often fix themselves.

Without making any huge changes to the top of the offensive core, several players had breakout seasons. MacKinnon and Rantanen have evolved into deadly offensive contributors, and their potential is even deadlier. Additionally, the goaltending situation fixed itself.

For the most part, the Avalanche just improved. They didn’t have to go through a long, gruelling process. They just improved.

Conclusion

Having put a disappointing season behind them, Colorado has a bright future ahead of them.