Offseason Thread Part II

[nammerus]

Makes literally no sense. He’s going purely by free agency.

He didn’t even include Byram and Newhook. No to mention he says Kuemper is no Grubauer. We’ll see about that.

Keep in mind that Dom goes off analytics and the underlying numbers of Colorado players are better than every other team. So the players coming in are going to seem much worse because they weren’t playing in the Colorado system and had worse underlying numbers.

Pretty crazy how biased the Athletic is. There’s no chance that we got significantly worse, as it would ruin the narrative of Sakic being infallible.

 

[CoachBadkitten]

Might as well post what he actually wrote before everyone gets up in arms:

29. Colorado Avalanche
Wins Added: -4.3 wins
Salary Added: -$13.6 million
In: Darcy Kuemper, Ryan Murray, Darren Helm, Kurtis MacDermid
Out: Philipp Grubauer, Joonas Donskoi, Brandon Saad, Ryan Graves, Conor Timmins, Pierre-Edouard Bellemare, Patrik Nemeth
The Avalanche had some gigantic contracts to sign this summer and paid the price to fit those pieces in. Losing starting goaltender Philipp Grubauer is the biggest loss for the team by far, but the next five players were also important contributors too. Joonas Donskoi and Brandon Saad were excellent in the middle six, Ryan Graves was mostly great in a top four role, Conor Timmins is coming into his own and Pierre-Edouard Bellemare is a strong fourth-line defensive center. It’ll be very tough to replace all of that and it’s why Colorado has a huge win offseason deficit.
Two of the players, Darren Helm and Kurtis MacDermid, really obfuscate things because they carry huge negative value, but the other two do help. Darcy Kuemper is no Grubauer, but when healthy has had some strong numbers for the Coyotes. Same goes for Ryan Murray, although his play did dip from his Columbus days. There’s no one to replace the two forwards lost and that’s the biggest issue, but Colorado is obviously hoping that can be done from within.

So, no it doesn't take into account Newhook or Byram. And it sounds like a lot of the negative comes through on Helm and MacDermid. That being said, seems like he also agrees with most of us in needing one more top 6/middle 6 forward.

 

[Northern Avs Fan]

Pretty crazy how biased the Athletic is. There’s no chance that we got significantly worse, as it would ruin the narrative of Sakic being infallible.

Not sure why anyone would think Sakic is perfect.

I don’t think they’re biased at all. I know Dom is heavily numbers driven though and that the departed Avs all have fantastic underlying numbers, which in his model is going to make them more valuable.

I’m all ears to hear why the team has gotten significantly worse.

 

[Richard88]

Forsberg at the deadline

Landeskog -- MacKinnon -- Rantanen
Forsberg ------- Newhook --- Burakovsky
Nichuskin -------- Kadri ------ Compher
Helm ---------------- Jost --------- O'Connor
(Maltsev)

Byram -- Makar
Girard -- Toews
Murray - Johnson
(MacDermid)

Kuemper
Francouz
(Johansson)

 

[Richard88]

Might as well post what he actually wrote before everyone gets up in arms:




So, no it doesn't take into account Newhook or Byram. And it sounds like a lot of the negative comes through on Helm and MacDermid. That being said, seems like he also agrees with most of us in needing one more top 6/middle 6 forward.

It is surprising to see Helm being a "massive negative". His analytics which I shared in the Helm thread yesterday are actually really solid.

 

[henchman21]

You sure about that? Most GSVA models use totals (an algorithm of the last 3 year totals mostly weighted on the most recent season) instead of per game or 82 game projections. Not sure what Dom used here as he didn’t make it clear in the article but if he used 82 game projections the Avs numbers are definitely drastically inflated.

If they used rates instead of totals that would make Alex Newhook an upgrade on Connor Mcdavid based on last season. I have to assume they used totals as they almost always do.

Yeah... I'm saying their limited impact would have been spread over 56 games from last year, with obviously no data from the previous years. Then projected to a full season. It would be an artificially low number due to the games played. Which is why Dom is saying the Avs are hoping they replace what was lost.

FTR not a huge fan of Dom's model.

 

[nammerus]

Not sure why anyone would think Sakic is perfect.

I don’t think they’re biased at all. I know Dom is heavily numbers driven though and that the departed Avs all have fantastic underlying numbers, which in his model is going to make them more valuable.

I’m all ears to hear why the team has gotten significantly worse.

Considering one of our biggest issues in the playoffs was depth scoring, and we lost 32 goals (~47 pro-rated over 82 games) in the top 9, with our only replacement being a rookie, I’d say that’s a big hit.

But even if you believe like many around here do that Newhook can replace all those losses (which is delusional at best) we still have terrible C depth and a bottom 9 forward group that is tough to take seriously as a cup contender. Sakic ignored our biggest issues and has limited ammo to fix it going forward.

 

[Ararana]

 

[Shane Diesel]

How does Dater account for the fact the Avs' two biggest defenders (and ostensibly the most physical) were also they're worst players against Vegas?

No one ever said the dude was bright.

 

[Richard88]

The next Foppa #21

 

[Bill Peckerskull]

 

[Bill Peckerskull]

 

[Richard88]

When did Alex Jones become an outdoorsman?

 

[Pierce Hawthorne]

Pretty crazy how biased the Athletic is. There’s no chance that we got significantly worse, as it would ruin the narrative of Sakic being infallible.

You're still talking?

 

[tucker3434]

Considering one of our biggest issues in the playoffs was depth scoring, and we lost 32 goals (~47 pro-rated over 82 games) in the top 9, with our only replacement being a rookie, I’d say that’s a big hit.

But even if you believe like many around here do that Newhook can replace all those losses (which is delusional at best) we still have terrible C depth and a bottom 9 forward group that is tough to take seriously as a cup contender. Sakic ignored our biggest issues and has limited ammo to fix it going forward.

We need Newhook to replace Donskoi. Saad needs to be replaced at the TDL.

Sakic didn't ignore anything. We just don't have any cap space. What should he have done differently this offseason? Let Landy go? Could we have replaced him for $7m? People keep saying get rid of Compher, but who wants him? If we're trying to throw his ass out of town, why are we'd have any takers? We probably would've needed to pay someone to take him or retain. If we retain, we're not any better off.

 

[Bill Peckerskull]

When did Alex Jones become an outdoorsman?

Don't disrespect Jim Belushi like that!

 

[Avs_19]

Maybe they just sent the kid a knock off jersey. I like the old way better but I also don't really care either way.

 

[BobRossColton]

Seravelli seems to think the cap will go up a million next off-season. Buyout Compher and it'll totally be like we're still working with the 81.5 cap. Ha ha.

 

[Pierce Hawthorne]

We need Newhook to replace Donskoi. Saad needs to be replaced at the TDL.

Sakic didn't ignore anything. We just don't have any cap space. What should he have done differently this offseason? Let Landy go? Could we have replaced him for $7m? People keep saying get rid of Compher, but who wants him? If we're trying to throw his ass out of town, why are we'd have any takers? We probably would've needed to pay someone to take him or retain. If we retain, we're not any better off.

Yep.


We simply didn't have any cap space to make the moves people wanted Joe to make. And some people really, really are struggling with such a basic concept.


Imagine if we had actually signed Grubauer as well instead of making the move for Kuemper at 3.5M? That would have been an additional 2.4M in cap spent. We probably wouldn't have signed Murray given we'd still have Timmins but overall we'd still have even less cap space then we have now.



That said, Joe has actually set the team up reasonably well at the moment. Roughly 2M in cap space now means we can easily maneuver players up/down from the AHL for injuries during the year(Which was a big problem all of last year) and bank potentially upwards of 7M in cap space for the deadline. By that point we should have a much better idea of what our specific needs will be to push us over the top. Things like how Newhook does in a Top 6 role, how Jost does at 3C, how the newly formed 4th line plays, how EJ and Kuemper hold up... We should have better answers to all those questions by the deadline and thus Sakic can know where to best spend that money at the deadline.

 

[Avs_19]

Wait, Tatar signed?

 

[Bill Peckerskull]

 

[SoundwaveIsCharisma]

Wait, Tatar signed?

Dammit, there goes the guy we could've healthy scratched during the playoffs!

 

[BrickNHL]

No way we were getting him if he got that

 

[SoundwaveIsCharisma]

If the Pens decide they don't want to pay Aston-Reese for some reason, I'd like him on the Avs. He's a pretty good defensive forward, and a trio of Nuke, Jost and ZAR would be a pain to play against.

 

[Northern Avs Fan]

An extra million gives the Avs $29.5M in cap space next year. That’s with EJ and Compher still on the books.

Without EJ they’re looking at $35.5M.

Landy - MacK - Rants
Newhook - XX - XX
XX - Jost - Compher
XX - XX - XX

Byram - Makar
Toews - Girard
XX - XX

XX
Francouz

Lot’s of holes to fill, but they should have around $4M to use per roster spot.

Considering the bottom pair and 4th line guys won’t cost much, that should allow them to get some solid players on the 2nd/3rd line and in net.