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.
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.