Speculation: Avs biggest holes

StayAtHomeAv

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May 20, 2014
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The holes are few and far between now.

1- 2way top end defender 2C/W, bumping Yeti to 3C (would give us at least one legit tweener who could move up, knocks another 4th liner out of the line up, giving us another call up option as well). Maybe it's just my personal preference for the elite 2way players, but this really is the only thing we are missing at the nhl level, a dominate 2way top6 line. As it stands right now our forwards are more geared towards offense. If we could just get another top end 2way 2C that would give us more balance in the forwards. Yeti and whoever on the 3rd line is a good balanced line and Lando plus another top end 2way player gives us a great 2way top6 line, all while not sacrificing offensive production.

2- forward depth is better, but we could use a couple more high end prospects who are more likely to be top6 guys than guys like Compher, Greer, Nantel etc. Bleackley is really the only one we got, and even gets questioned about his top6 capabilities.

Everything else is, as TV said, questions not needs, long term at least. We might need a top4 D this year while we wait for Zads/Bigras. We might need another bottom 6 player if Grigo falters, but that's a pretty easy fix going forward.
 

shadow1

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Nov 29, 2008
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The defense is still thin but the Avs have several quality defensive prospects.
 

Cousin Eddie

You Serious Clark?
Nov 3, 2006
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Top 6 LW
2nd line centre
3rd line centre

I feel like we have these things but Sakic/Roy's comments on Soderberg make me think otherwise. I truly believe Grigo would fit well beside Dutchy and Iggy. I also think it's time for MAck to be moved to centre. With those moves it allows Tanguay to play 2nd line with Landy and Mack and Soderberg is our 3rd line centre.

Maybe i'm too optimistic about Grigo but if he can play wing in training camp and can even look like a middle 6 winger I think the lines have to go the way I just suggested.
 

Colorado Avalanche

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The defense is still thin but the Avs have several quality defensive prospects.

Yeah at this point it's starting to look like our strength, as long as Bigras turns out fine. We have good prospects coming up. Same can't be said about our offense though. We really need help to that.
 

cgf

FireBednarsSuccessor
Oct 15, 2010
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Everyone's posts seems to suggest we have multiple holes and are not as whole as we want to be.

-Where does Grigorenko fit in? Top 6 offensive role? Bottom 6 defensive role with some offense?

-Do solid bottom 6 guys like Winchester come back to health and contribute or will blackholes like Cliche play 80 games?

-How do Zadorov and Bigras develop and fill in at the bottom 4 of the defense? Will others step up to fill the holes? It'll probably be a top 3 heavy lifting with Johnson, Beauch, and Barrie playing a lot with others filling in here and there

We have guys who could fill our holes, but they're still question marks, those 4 you mentioned being big pieces. If everything goes our way this team could be cup contenders in 2016-2017 after picking up rads, but there's a lot that still has to work out for us first.
 

Matheus

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Jan 22, 2015
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top 6 is my biggest concern.. one injury away to have a weak top 6 and terrible 3rd line.

Comeau or Grigs can play as a top 6, but nothing great, it's too risky trust Grigs/Comeau to play in that top 6. And if they play as a top 6 who will play on the 3rd line? Mcleod? Mitchell? or worst...
 

ABasin

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After this previous offseason the Avs have fewer holes than they have had at any point in the past 10 years. Our defense is shored up short term and long, our prospect pool is dramatically better and the Avs finally have a healthy cap structure.

With all of this optimism I wanted to start a thread discussing what current holes the Avs may possess. Here are some of the ones I can think of:

1) A winger for Duchene. If you have been an Avs fan during the last 5 or so years you know that when Duchene has a winger he has chemistry with he is almost an unstoppable offensive force and when he doesn't he is very prone to becoming frustrated and going on long slumps. In depth analysis has also suggested that specifically a LW he works well with would be ideal. With RoR, PaP, Flash and others all moved out of town I think this is currently the Avs biggest hole.

2) 2-way/defensive minded forwards. When Stastny was moved no one expected his absence to be felt as much as it was in the 2014-15 season. The reason was the Avs lost their defensive zone center and had no replacement, which forced them to move RoR back to center and threw the entire offensive structure out of whack. Now that RoR is gone how will it impact next season? The Avs look to replace him by committee with much improved depth over last season. Having a competent Dcore and acquired players like Comeau and Grigs along side Mackinnon and Duchene being a year older will have to be the void. The question is will it be enough? Also is Bleakley an eventual solution and how does he fit into all of this?

3) Young top 6 wingers to eventually replace Iggy and Tangs. Rantanen is was a huge pick up this year in this department so with him and Gabe the Avs will still have 2 spots they will eventually need to fill and this is an area of improvement for the Avs.

So those are just my quick thoughts and I'd love to hear what you guys have to say.

Lineup personnel holes:

- Scoring line wings
- depth forwards who can kill penalties
- #1 LHD

Functional (an odd word, but struggled to think of a better one) holes:

- Transition game from the defensive zone out
- Overall power play effectiveness
- Duchene's productivity on the power play
 

tigervixxxen

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Jul 7, 2013
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top 6 is my biggest concern.. one injury away to have a weak top 6 and terrible 3rd line.

Comeau or Grigs can play as a top 6, but nothing great, it's too risky trust Grigs/Comeau to play in that top 6. And if they play as a top 6 who will play on the 3rd line? Mcleod? Mitchell? or worst...

Hishon, Rendulic, Everberg, Rantanen. Going even further Martinsen, Street, Agozzino....

Ya, I know these aren't NHL players but at some point call up depth has to be something we aren't afraid of. And many people want Hishon, Everberg there anyway.
 

RoyIsALegend

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Top goal-scoring winger.

I don't care about centre depth. It's only as bad as it is because MacK needs to play RW due to the pathetic options there. After MacK and Landy, we're relying on 35+ year old dudes and unproven talents as the other contributors.

If we had a top RW, MacK goes back to C and we're suddenly rolling MacK/Duchene/Soda/Malkin down the middle, which is one of the deepest centre groups in the NHL.
 

Ivan13

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May 3, 2011
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Vrbata would be nice as a short stop gap solution, even though he's a bit up there in age. Both he and Hamhuis reportedly won't come back to the Nucks. Whichever team gets Hamhuis is going to get a damn fine d-man thanks to Nucks FO stupidity.
 

Ivan13

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And Guenin? Can we throw him in, too?

Why throw him when you can use this:

suarez_cannon.jpg
 

The Mars Volchenkov

Registered User
Mar 31, 2002
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The #3 center is going to be a concern for me. I have hopes that Grigorenko will do well, but we're talking about a guy with limited NHL experience in that #3 role, so I can't imagine he'll be taking a lot of defensive zone faceoffs, which makes the job tougher for Soderberg and Duchene. The counter to that would be that if Winchester is healthy, along with Mitchell, then the 4th line suddenly becomes one you can trust in the defensive zone a lot more.
 

The Mars Volchenkov

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Mar 31, 2002
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I think whoever Soderberg is playing with will be the defensive line. I know that might not be ideal but that's what they are thinking.
Obviously, but I don't really want Duchene and Iginla started as many shifts in the defensive zone as they did last year. Unless Grigorenko gets thrown to the wolves by Roy, I can't see it being any better this year.
 

henchman21

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Obviously, but I don't really want Duchene and Iginla started as many shifts in the defensive zone as they did last year. Unless Grigorenko gets thrown to the wolves by Roy, I can't see it being any better this year.

Part of that should be better puck movement from the backend. That should allow the Avs to start less in their own zone in general, which should cut down how much Duchene and Iggy have to start there.

A competent 4th line can help there too.
 

tigervixxxen

Optimism=Delusional
Jul 7, 2013
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TMV's thread brings up something (one of the few) that we haven't really gotten into and that's Tanguay's future. So many seem to just assume he'll stick around, take a team friendly deal and won't mind getting transitioned to the third line sooner than later. He's really our UFA this year with the biggest question mark in my mind and I could easily see him not be back. Sure it would be nice if he could be on a retirement plan to retire an Av, doesn't cost much but also doesn't expect to hang around forever but what if that's not the case? Do we actually consider selling him at the deadline (would have to be looking like a non-playoff year though I'm sure)? Are people going to have a conniption if he walks next summer? I think they have to be thinking what the future holds for Tanguay.
 

Stories

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TMV's thread brings up something (one of the few) that we haven't really gotten into and that's Tanguay's future. So many seem to just assume he'll stick around, take a team friendly deal and won't mind getting transitioned to the third line sooner than later. He's really our UFA this year with the biggest question mark in my mind and I could easily see him not be back. Sure it would be nice if he could be on a retirement plan to retire an Av, doesn't cost much but also doesn't expect to hang around forever but what if that's not the case? Do we actually consider selling him at the deadline (would have to be looking like a non-playoff year though I'm sure)? Are people going to have a conniption if he walks next summer? I think they have to be thinking what the future holds for Tanguay.

Could he go into year-to-year deals like Joe was doing towards the end of his deal?
 

The Mars Volchenkov

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henchman21

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TMV's thread brings up something (one of the few) that we haven't really gotten into and that's Tanguay's future. So many seem to just assume he'll stick around, take a team friendly deal and won't mind getting transitioned to the third line sooner than later. He's really our UFA this year with the biggest question mark in my mind and I could easily see him not be back. Sure it would be nice if he could be on a retirement plan to retire an Av, doesn't cost much but also doesn't expect to hang around forever but what if that's not the case? Do we actually consider selling him at the deadline (would have to be looking like a non-playoff year though I'm sure)? Are people going to have a conniption if he walks next summer? I think they have to be thinking what the future holds for Tanguay.

I don't think Tangs is traded this year, and I don't think he is re-signed this summer either. I really think Radulov will be an Av next year, and Rantanen will be with the big club. There really isn't a ton of room for him going forward. Maybe if Grigs sucks, Tangs gets brought back, but I don't see that happening.
 

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