So I finally had time to process last nights game:
1. Anyone who wants to blame Varly for last night is just plain stupid. Yes 5 goals against is a bad number but only one of those he probably wants back and that is the Koivu goal at the beginning. The Heatley goal was a weird deflection/redirection through traffic, the first Nino goal was through a dmans leg and off the post, the Spurgeon goal was a point blank shot off the post and in, and the Nino OT goal was a roof job on a 2 on 1. The fact of the matter is we got out-shot like 36-22 on home ice, that's pathetic especially in a game 7. Basically what happened last night was Varly couldn't make the spectacular saves to bail out our crappy defense, which he had been doing for basically all of the year.
2. Not at all surprised by Hejda's injury, he was awful this series. But I really can't blame him as his hand is mutilated. I commend him for trying as our defense sucks and would have been worse without him.
3. Our defense is brutal and needs to be addressed this off-season, it's really the only thing holding us back from being a Cup contender. Our defense needs to get tougher. Period. It's soft as butter other than EJ who I don't want to be our physical dman, I want him to be our all around guy.
4. For all the crap that PAP took this year, he almost single-handedly won us game 7 with his play in the 3rd period, two super plays that lead to goals. He was probably one of our best offensive player the last 2 games.
5. I hope Hishon can make it through a summer without getting hurt so he can get a shot in camp. I like what I saw and hopefully he can bring something to the team next year.
6. Wilson deserves some credit I thought he played hard considering the situation he was forced into
7. Nick Holden!! This guy took more crap around here than any other player, but he was our 2nd best dman this series. He fully deserves a top 6 spot next season. Yes he has his flaws but he was an animal for us this year.
8. Not sure how I feel about Benoit, he was solid for us in this series, but I'm not sure if he will be back or not.
9. Nate Guenin, better be relegated to Nacho duty next year, his play really tailed off towards the end of the year and pretty much showed why he is an AHL caliber Dman
10. MacKinnon is going to be a star in this league, once he matures a little bit. It's so hard to believe he is only 18. He still tries to pull off some of those cutesy junior moves that just don't work in the NHL. There were a few times last night where he had good chances but just got too cute and it led to nothing. He'll learn the sky is the limit for this kid, I could easily see him and Duchene producing at point per game level next season.
Overall, this was one hell of a season, that had one rough ending for these kids. I guarantee a series with a 100% healthy Duchene, Mitchell and Barrie would have been a different story. Just look what Duchene meant to the team the 2 games he played at like 85%. And look at the 2 games Barrie played. But that's all hypotheticals and it's now in the past.
This team is very eerily similar to the 1994-95 Nordiques, a bunch of youngsters playing over their head, win the division, only to be beaten by an experienced NY Rangers team in the first round of the playoffs. Well we all know what happened the next year when they moved to Colorado.
It's time to use this loss as extra motivation to come back even harder next season. Go Avs!
Very good post by Chet from the other thread. This is pretty much bang on.
The only difference is that I think this team is more like the '92-'93 Nordiques. The team that had the record for points increase going from 52 pts the year prior to 104 pts (went from 2nd last to 4th overall). That team won the first 2 playoff games at home only to lose the next 4 against Patrick Roy and the Habs.
That Nordiques team featured:
Forwards
Sakic,C - 23 yrs old
Sundin,C - 21 yrs old
Ricci,C - 20 yrs old
Rucinsky,LW - 21 yrs old
Kamensky,LW - 26 yrs old
Simon,LW - 20 yrs old
Nolan,RW - 20 yrs old
Kovalenko,RW - 22 yrs old
Young,RW - 24 yrs old
Defense
Duchesne,D - 27 yrs old
Leschyshyn,D - 22 yrs old
Gusarov,D - 28 yrs old
Foote,D - 21 yrs old
Huffman,D - 24 yrs old
Finn,D - 26 yrs old
Wolanin,D - 25 yrs old
Goalie
Hextall,G - 28 yrs old
Fiset,G - 22 yrs old
Does that blueprint look even a little bit familiar at all?
So if you look at the D as a group, they were not great. To make matters worse, Pagé then traded Steve Duchesne for Ron Sutter, Bob Bassen and Garth Butcher the following season which was a disaster although Bassen had some nice moments.
We missed the playoffs altogether, which was surprising considering the talent [Pagé had completely lost the room]. He was fired and Pierre Lacroix took over and mopped up his mess with the following draft day trades:
June 28th, 1994 (at the draft)
To NY Islanders:
R. Sutter,C
9th overall pick, 1994 (Brett Lindros)
To Nordiques:
U. Krupp,D
12th overall pick, 1994 (Wade Belak)
To Toronto:
M. Sundin,C
G. Butcher,D
T. Warriner,LW
10th overall pick, 1994 (Nolan Baumgartner)
To Nordiques:
W. Clark,LW
S. Lefebvre,D
L. Wilson,RW
22nd overall pick, 1994 (Jeff Kealty)
Those 2 trades made that team a lot tougher to play against. Sure, they had to give up a star player in Sundin but they could afford to do it with Forsberg coming in. Adding TWO top-4 d-men was a huge coup, especially the Krupp trade.
As we all know, Clark was then traded for Claude Lemieux, Nolan was swapped for Ozolinsh (*since we had traded Duchesne - more mopping up for Lacroix) and Roy and Keane were acquired for some of our
non-core young kids and the rest is history.
So I'm not sure that we are where the 94-95 Nordiques were at, just one year shy of winning the cup, I think our core is older and likely further ahead than the '92-'93 Nords but we are still a few key acquisitions away, on defense and some veteran role players (Keane/Podein types) from being true contenders, in my opinion.
I am very excited in anticipation of what will happen this off-season.
and now no Avalanche hockey for 5 months 
