GDT: Avs @ Kraken - 8PM MT - "Return to the Shattered Realms"

[GeoRox89]

MacKinnon!

Love it. Thus why I put realistic in there cause we could get Zegras but not for anything we’d be prepared to give up

 

[ItsFineImFine]

Just finished watching the game. No good individual performances tbh but a decent experienced third period to kill off the game, especially the final 10-12 minutes felt like watching a team whose won a cup stifle a game somewhat so that's a good sign.

But getting outskated by Seattle isn't.

 

[expatriatedtexan]

Player performances

I don't really understand these cards. But what I gather from that is that RyJo had a smaller impact on the game than most but his impact was mostly positive (offensively) and a little bit of a disadvantage defensively but not horrendously so. Looks like Cogs had the roughest night defensively if I'm reading this right?

 

[AvsMakar08]

Byram+ for 2C

Yeah, but did you know that Byram is not for sale?

 

[Foppa2118]

Byram for Lundell as proposed in the past.

If I’m trading Byram, I rather add and get someone better than Lundell. Someone like Lindholm maybe. Lundell hasn’t really done enough for me to give up Byram

Byram ++ for Zegras

Byram+ for 2C

Avs have almost $85M committed towards the cap next year with a 14 man roster.

Zegras is making $5.75M. Lindholm is a UFA about to make like $9M. Lundell will make at least the $4M Colton got. And the kind of 2C Byram+ would bring in will also be very expensive.

How can the Avs afford that, and replace Byram, while still filling out a decent roster?

Byram is the Avs cheapest defenseman outside of JJ. Why would he be the one traded?

This will also probably mean trading Manson won't be enough to keep Mikko in a couple years, they'll have to trade someone else. Probably a forward like Val or Lehky. So add them to the cost of trading for another 2C.

Not to mention going this route will change the D core from the team's biggest strength to a giant question mark outside the top pair in a short period of time. Add that and the impact of losing a promising 22 year old defenseman to the Avs contention window, to the cost of trading for another 2C.

It also bears reminding that RyJo has played 3 games at 2C, while the Avs are 3-0, clearly have another level or two they can get to, and potentially could add Landeskog and Kovalenko for the playoffs.

 

[S E P H]

Byram is the Avs cheapest defenseman outside of JJ. Why would he be the one traded?

Because he's the only one who has value that can get someone like Lundell?

Add that and the impact of losing a promising 22 year old defenseman to the Avs contention window, to the cost of trading for another 2C.

How can the Avs afford that, and replace Byram, while still filling out a decent roster?

Much easier to find Byrams' in a draft instead of Lundells'. Centres are the Quarterback version of the NHL. If you're just "good," you tend to get drafted 5-10 spots higher than all the rankings had you simply because centres are that valued. It's why Kotkaniemi went so high, why the Jets drafted MS55 so high, why the Wings drafted Kasper high, why the Kings drafted Byfield, and why Fantilli fell (issues of him being a long-term centre). How drafts are trending, centres will only be available in the top 15-ish for solid potential and after that, you're looking at very raw players or ones that have a red flag or two in their game if a centre is somewhere in the twenties. Avs got Ritchie because of the red flag of him with his shoulder injury. Instead of constantly stop-gapping that problem, getting a 2nd line centre with Byram would be a long-term fix if there is a team that values him very highly.

 

[Foppa2118]

Because he's the only one who has value that can get someone like Lundell?


Much easier to find Byrams' in a draft instead of Lundells'. Centres are the Quarterback version of the NHL. If you're just "good," you tend to get drafted 5-10 spots higher than all the rankings had you simply because centres are that valued. It's why Kotkaniemi went so high, why the Jets drafted MS55 so high, why the Wings drafted Kasper high, why the Kings drafted Byfield, and why Fantilli fell (issues of him being a long-term centre). How drafts are trending, centres will only be available in the top 15-ish for solid potential and after that, you're looking at very raw players or ones that have a red flag or two in their game if a centre is somewhere in the twenties. Avs got Ritchie because of the red flag of him with his shoulder injury. Instead of constantly stop-gapping that problem, getting a 2nd line centre with Byram would be a long-term fix if there is a team that values him very highly.

This doesn't answer how they can afford Lundell's raise next summer, replace Byram, and still fill out a decent roster though? They'll have about $2M in cap space as it is with a 14 man roster.

Or the impact it will have on the defense by trading Byram. We'd have Makar who has a nagging hip problem that hasn't gone away. A soon to be 30 year old Toews coming off a sub par year. Then Girard who's fairly one dimensional and not that strong defensively. And Manson who's fairly one dimensional himself defensively, and who they'll likely have to trade in 1-2 years anyway.

So they'd have a good top pair, plus Girard, and then they'd have to figure out a way to fill out the rest to a Cup competent level, with almost no cap space.

I would disagree on it being easier to find Byram's than Lundell's in the draft too. Both in general and with the Avs.

The Avs had good center depth 1-3C in all but 3 of the last 14 years. They went about 20 years without a good D core, because they were having trouble daft and trading for D men.

The center depth didn't help them win the Cup the improved defense did. If they're going to continue competing, the younger D core will play a big part in that, so they shouldn't weaken it unless they absolutely have to for cap reasons IMO.

 

[Colorado Avalanche]

I don't really understand these cards. But what I gather from that is that RyJo had a smaller impact on the game than most but his impact was mostly positive (offensively) and a little bit of a disadvantage defensively but not horrendously so. Looks like Cogs had the roughest night defensively if I'm reading this right?

Right side is positive. Look at Rantanen, he did everything well because they are all on the right side. Offense, Defense, production and Misc.

Cogliano made defensive errors which were big, but he contributed well otherwise so he wasn't the worst performer of the night.(the worst performers Olofsson and Wood) The positives can still out weight the negatives. Just like if you look at Makar. He did a lot of good things but he wasn't as good as Rantanen because his offense wasn't there.

Of course you should never look at these at 100% truth but I have noticed quite often they for the eye test. If I watch a game and think someone's having rough night, it matches. Obviously these are not as accurate if someone plays 4-9 min a game. Sample size is so small. Then you should probably look at bigger sample.

I find it interesting though.

Our best performers so far this season:
#1 Rantanen
#2 MacK
#3 Makar
#4 Nuke
#5 Lehkonen
#6 Girard
#7 Johnson (surprised!)

You can find the stats here:

All Skaters | HockeyStatCards.com

hockeystatcards.com

 

[The Kingslayer]

Avs have almost $85M committed towards the cap next year with a 14 man roster.

Zegras is making $5.75M. Lindholm is a UFA about to make like $9M. Lundell will make at least the $4M Colton got. And the kind of 2C Byram+ would bring in will also be very expensive.

How can the Avs afford that, and replace Byram, while still filling out a decent roster?

Byram is the Avs cheapest defenseman outside of JJ. Why would he be the one traded?

This will also probably mean trading Manson won't be enough to keep Mikko in a couple years, they'll have to trade someone else. Probably a forward like Val or Lehky. So add them to the cost of trading for another 2C.

Not to mention going this route will change the D core from the team's biggest strength to a giant question mark outside the top pair in a short period of time. Add that and the impact of losing a promising 22 year old defenseman to the Avs contention window, to the cost of trading for another 2C.

It also bears reminding that RyJo has played 3 games at 2C, while the Avs are 3-0, clearly have another level or two they can get to, and potentially could add Landeskog and Kovalenko for the playoffs.

I want Bo to be the guy on another team while helping the Avs out with a 2C. I want to get rid of him because I care for him....

 

[Vaslof]

I don't really understand these cards. But what I gather from that is that RyJo had a smaller impact on the game than most but his impact was mostly positive (offensively) and a little bit of a disadvantage defensively but not horrendously so. Looks like Cogs had the roughest night defensively if I'm reading this right?

Yeah correct on both. Though something to consider is that a guy like Cogs is used differently than a guy like Johansen. Cogs gets tough minutes, PK, worse linemates, defensive zone starts etc. while Johansen gets sheltered from all that.

Right side is positive. Look at Rantanen, he did everything well because they are all on the right side. Offense, Defense, production and Misc.

Cogliano made defensive errors which were big, but he contributed well otherwise so he wasn't the worst performer of the night.(the worst performers Olofsson and Wood) The positives can still out weight the negatives. Just like if you look at Makar. He did a lot of good things but he wasn't as good as Rantanen because his offense wasn't there.

Of course you should never look at these at 100% truth but I have noticed quite often they for the eye test. If I watch a game and think someone's having rough night, it matches. Obviously these are not as accurate if someone plays 4-9 min a game. Sample size is so small. Then you should probably look at bigger sample.

I find it interesting though.

Our best performers so far this season:
#1 Rantanen
#2 MacK
#3 Makar
#4 Nuke
#5 Lehkonen
#6 Girard
#7 Johnson (surprised!)

You can find the stats here:

All Skaters | HockeyStatCards.com

hockeystatcards.com

GameScore is derived from these basic stats: goals, primary assists, secondary assists, shots on goal, blocked shots, penalty differential, faceoffs, 5-on-5 corsi differential, 5-on-5 goal differential. Most of those should be familiar to everyone. Corsi is based on shot differential. Anyway the creator then chose weights to all of these stats to create one number. They were chosen fairly arbitrarily based on the creators idea of what matters.

Here's the creators own take on the weaknesses of his stat:

As mentioned above with regards to Bergeron and Subban’s ranking, context is key and Game Score is completely devoid of it. Teammates, competition, score, pace, zone starts, playing time, special teams time, team effects – none of it is accounted for. All those things will affect a player’s stats in differing ways, but Game Score ignores it.


This is by design, as the intended goal was to create a rough measurement that was simple, familiar and accessible. Factoring in all those adjustments makes the measurements more accurate, but also more complicated and less accessible (my friend some jerk literally told me yesterday he stops reading what I write when I mention adjusted corsi). At the full season level something more complicated is worth the added accuracy and could serve reasonably well as a relatively simple all-in-one stat; but at the game level simplicity is perhaps more important.


Another thing that’s missing is on-ice stats for special teams. Players get credit for individual stats accumulated, but nothing at the team level which is a pretty sizeable gap in missing data. In all honesty, I wasn’t sure how it could be accounted for in a simple yet effective manner and that’s why it was ignored completely.


Then there’s the issue of defence. The on-ice differential data helps, but Game Score is very much driven by offensive contributions which means some defensive players will be very underrated. In this case, we’re limited by what’s available in the NHL’s play-by-play data and there simply aren’t many defensive stats to use.


The final issue I see is in net. We know by now there’s more nuance to a goalie’s game – that shot location matters, that penalty killing save-percentage is very random, etc – but that’s not accounted for here. Really, Game Score for goalies is just to place them on a level playing field with players and to see whether a goalie stole a game, lost a game, or if he was just solid. There are better ways to evaluate how he played, this just puts it in relation with the rest of his team.

 

[the_fan]

Right side is positive. Look at Rantanen, he did everything well because they are all on the right side. Offense, Defense, production and Misc.

Cogliano made defensive errors which were big, but he contributed well otherwise so he wasn't the worst performer of the night.(the worst performers Olofsson and Wood) The positives can still out weight the negatives. Just like if you look at Makar. He did a lot of good things but he wasn't as good as Rantanen because his offense wasn't there.

Of course you should never look at these at 100% truth but I have noticed quite often they for the eye test. If I watch a game and think someone's having rough night, it matches. Obviously these are not as accurate if someone plays 4-9 min a game. Sample size is so small. Then you should probably look at bigger sample.

I find it interesting though.

Our best performers so far this season:
#1 Rantanen
#2 MacK
#3 Makar
#4 Nuke
#5 Lehkonen
#6 Girard
#7 Johnson (surprised!)

You can find the stats here:

All Skaters | HockeyStatCards.com

hockeystatcards.com

If you only counting skaters than that’s the right list, otherwise the best performer so far has been Georgiev. He should be #1 followed by Mikko

 

[DanishAvsfan]

For the text or the images?

Images, thanks.

 

[Colorado Avalanche]

If you only counting skaters than that’s the right list, otherwise the best performer so far has been Georgiev. He should be #1 followed by Mikko

True that.

The list was based on the website.

 

[Alienblood]

I want Bo to be the guy on another team while helping the Avs out with a 2C. I want to get rid of him because I care for him....

I hate to.say this but Bo.is being wasted here
He needs to be the guy and get more opportunity.

The coaching staff is.doing nothing for him.here and I think he knows.it and it shows.

The same.thing happened.to Girard They are being coached wrong. They should be on their horse all.the time not be held back.

Young players don't develop well under this coaching staff and it's 1 of the biggest reasons I'd like to.see a change.

Tiring of Bednar and if we don't win the.Cup it's time he goes

 

[Raucherhusten]

I hate to.say this but Bo.is being wasted here
He needs to be the guy and get more opportunity.

The coaching staff is.doing nothing for him.here and I think he knows.it and it shows.

The same.thing happened.to Girard They are being coached wrong. They should be on their horse all.the time not be held back.

Young players don't develop well under this coaching staff and it's 1 of the biggest reasons I'd like to.see a change.

Tiring of Bednar and if we don't win the.Cup it's time he goes

I'm sorry, but WTF are you talking about ?!? Bo missed extented time every season because of injuries, and that's the main reason he's not where he could be at this stage of his career.

Blaming Bednar for his development is just crazy talk.

Also, with Toews and Makar we have two guys who are just better than him. So, if he wants to be "The Guy", he has to prove that he in fact IS "The Guy" ... and until now he hasn't done that.

 

[The Moops]

Images, thanks.

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perchance.org

 

[Pokecheque]

They both have a very long history of being garbage on their previous teams. Many people here just assumed that they'd instantly become good just by wearing the Avs jersey. Lesson learned, hopefully.

 

[Ararana]

My real problem with choosing Girard over Byram is when the postseason comes. Byram has shown he elevates his game quite a bit in the postseason and not only holds his own but becomes an impact player. Meanwhile, IMO Girard is simply too small to handle playoff intensity.

2022 Postseason:

2023 Postseason:

Byram is simply the better player when it matters most. He's off to a slow start this year (not super unlike him), while Girard has looked great, but I expect those two will flip before too long.

For the record, I don't think either of them will return the 2C the Avs need.

 

[S E P H]

This doesn't answer how they can afford Lundell's raise next summer, replace Byram, and still fill out a decent roster though? They'll have about $2M in cap space as it is with a 14 man roster.

Or the impact it will have on the defense by trading Byram. We'd have Makar who has a nagging hip problem that hasn't gone away. A soon to be 30 year old Toews coming off a sub par year. Then Girard who's fairly one dimensional and not that strong defensively. And Manson who's fairly one dimensional himself defensively, and who they'll likely have to trade in 1-2 years anyway.

So they'd have a good top pair, plus Girard, and then they'd have to figure out a way to fill out the rest to a Cup competent level, with almost no cap space.

I would disagree on it being easier to find Byram's than Lundell's in the draft too. Both in general and with the Avs.

The Avs had good center depth 1-3C in all but 3 of the last 14 years. They went about 20 years without a good D core, because they were having trouble daft and trading for D men.

The center depth didn't help them win the Cup the improved defense did. If they're going to continue competing, the younger D core will play a big part in that, so they shouldn't weaken it unless they absolutely have to for cap reasons IMO.

Here's the thing, drafting though not science is becoming better with more tools being available like analytics and players being better trained at the grassroots levels. For the most part, we're dawning a new age where the top 5 in most NHL drafts should be very talented even with some misses in there. Now, not every draft year will be like 2015 or possess a Bedard-type of player at the top, but enough where you should be getting a borderline franchise player in it. Byram is extremely talented and even though losing him would be a loss, Avs is covered in that position more than at centre. I think you're suffering from Avs-pro bias here, Behrens, Gulyayev, and less degree Hanzel have a better chance of replacing Byram than Foudy and Ritchie have at filling that 2nd line centre spot.

Additionally, the cap is fluid, I don't see it as a static structure as you may be pertaining to. The cap as we see it currently for the Avs will be much different two to three seasons from now. Hell, from the Atlanta Thrashers-esque season Avs had when Roy quit, it took only two years to change 90%+ of that team. I know two years seems like a long time for us, but in sports, it is actually a pretty fast segment of time.

I agree Avs won the Cup with defence at the forefront, but that entire team was deep with a centre core of MacKinnon, Kadri (semi-injured), and Compher. We can make the argument that Lightning got the final three years in a row due to centre depth after considering AV88. In the NHL, you always trade from a position of strength to a position of weakness. You mention all those defenders being bad, but so far Johansen hasn't really been up to the 2nd line centre role which is an important role. With Toews now signed long-term, Avs will always keep Byram in the second pairing for the next noticeable amount of time showing the strength we have. Without a 2nd line centre, when/if your 1st line centre gets injured you have to rely on the 2nd line bloke to fill in the gap and last season it was MacKinnon/Compher. Could you picture JT taking draws against Crosby, McDavid, Kopitar, and others? I have nightmares. Now Johansen makes that better on paper and we need to give him time, but Avs might be forced to fix that spot because it is a gaping hole on any club with Cup aspirations. Ryan was always here as a stop-gap to stop the bleeding, but he isn't going to be the sutures that this team may need.

 

[Foppa2118]

Here's the thing, drafting though not science is becoming better with more tools being available like analytics and players being better trained at the grassroots levels. For the most part, we're dawning a new age where the top 5 in most NHL drafts should be very talented even with some misses in there. Now, not every draft year will be like 2015 or possess a Bedard-type of player at the top, but enough where you should be getting a borderline franchise player in it. Byram is extremely talented and even though losing him would be a loss, Avs is covered in that position more than at centre. I think you're suffering from Avs-pro bias here, Behrens, Gulyayev, and less degree Hanzel have a better chance of replacing Byram than Foudy and Ritchie have at filling that 2nd line centre spot.

Additionally, the cap is fluid, I don't see it as a static structure as you may be pertaining to. The cap as we see it currently for the Avs will be much different two to three seasons from now. Hell, from the Atlanta Thrashers-esque season Avs had when Roy quit, it took only two years to change 90%+ of that team. I know two years seems like a long time for us, but in sports, it is actually a pretty fast segment of time.

I agree Avs won the Cup with defence at the forefront, but that entire team was deep with a centre core of MacKinnon, Kadri (semi-injured), and Compher. We can make the argument that Lightning got the final three years in a row due to centre depth after considering AV88. In the NHL, you always trade from a position of strength to a position of weakness. You mention all those defenders being bad, but so far Johansen hasn't really been up to the 2nd line centre role which is an important role. With Toews now signed long-term, Avs will always keep Byram in the second pairing for the next noticeable amount of time showing the strength we have. Without a 2nd line centre, when/if your 1st line centre gets injured you have to rely on the 2nd line bloke to fill in the gap and last season it was MacKinnon/Compher. Could you picture JT taking draws against Crosby, McDavid, Kopitar, and others? I have nightmares. Now Johansen makes that better on paper and we need to give him time, but Avs might be forced to fix that spot because it is a gaping hole on any club with Cup aspirations. Ryan was always here as a stop-gap to stop the bleeding, but he isn't going to be the sutures that this team may need.

Ritchie is a much better center prospect than Behrens, Gulyayev, and Hanzel are D prospects though. Ritchie would have been a mid 1st pick if he didn't have his shoulder injury.

This is the Avs center depth since 2009. The only years they didn't have good C depth were 16, 17, and 22. This year is too soon to tell. It's vastly better than their defensive depth in that time, which I won't post, because then I'll have to clean up the vomit off my keyboard.

2009-2014 - Duchene-Stastny-ROR (MacKinnon mostly at RW)
2015-2015 - Duchene-MacKinnon-ROR-Soderberg
2016-2017 - MacKinnon-Duchene-Soderberg-Mitchell
2017-2018 - MacKinnon-Kerfoot-Soderberg*
2019-2021 - MacKinnon-Kadri-Compher
2022-2022 - MacKinnon-Compher-Eller*
2023-???? - MacKinnon-Johansen-Colton

This is the Avs D core in their Cup year.

Toews - Makar
Girard - Manson
Byram - EJ

This is what it will be if they trade Byram and then have to trade Manson for cap reasons. There will be very little cap space to fill out those remaining three spots sufficiently if they bring in another 2C that isn't really cheap. Which is why I think they view Colton and Ritchie as potential future 2C and 3C's.

Toews - Makar
Girard - XX
XX - XX

Talk about the window closing. It could be permanently shut with that D core, no matter who's playing 2C, because it's very unlikely they fill it out properly with no cap space. Just like we saw the Avs never do anything with Duchene-MacKinnon-ROR at center, because of the poor defensive depth.

 

[Pokecheque]

Boy I ran into some aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaangry Krakheads after the game and I finally had to mute notifications because one of them just would not shut up (but also, Avs fans just kept coming after him...don't feed the trolls, people). He might still be going, I don't know.

 

[The Mars Volchenkov]

Bednar hates Byram? Only Toews has played more at ES this season, and it’s only by 30 seconds.