Every team goes through growing pains, the Avs is just worse than expected this year.
I have a sneaking suspicion that a lot of players didn't take their offseasons seriously. Varlamov re-injured his groin (something he previously was said to have done specific exercising on to strengthen going forward), MacKinnon wasn't ready to handle the load offensively (not that some of us didn't see that coming), Landy/ROR aren't contributing the high end offense they did last year and in ROR's case (difficult as it is to say) looks like conditioning (his skating has noticeably regressed). Stuart's been injured (which he's sadly much better than our current bottom pairing guys).
Meanwhile McGinn and Mitchell have been injured most of the season, both are significant depth pieces. As is Winchester whom hasn't played for us yet. We lost PAP and in turn Briere had to step up, which he sort of did but more than should be expected. Stastny's loss hurt. Then management thought guys like Holden, Guenin and McLeod were worth retaining long term due to the unexpected results of last year even though they're barely NHLers.
Combine that with only 3 players contributing at or above their expectations and all of them being defenders (EJ, Barrie, Redmond), it really hurts the team's success.
I'd rather they struggle now and learn from it, they need to see they're not contenders yet. Last year when to their heads a lot, Roy's too. Funny thing is they changed their defensive coverage and play style in a way that improved their advanced stats in terms of Corsi, but they're still not winning. Just goes to show the advanced stats gurus don't know everything. This year the problem is they aren't possessing and distributing the puck as successfully as last year. Last year they scored on the rush with a lot more ease too, the Wild seemed to have solved that and a lot of teams took notice accordingly.