The 2003-04 Colorado Avalance (with Kariya and Selanne)

[Riggins]

My memory is seriously fuzzy about this team. Please enlighten me.

Patrick Roy had just retired after their first round loss to the Wild the previous year. I know everyone was going nuts in the offseason when Kariya and Selanne decided to join the Avs at bargain rates. Their healthy forward lines looked absolutely ludicrous and everyone was expecting outlandish goal totals.

Forsberg missed half the season. Kariya missed 30 games. I know it was far from a disaster, they still had a 100 point season and won a playoff round. But what else went wrong besides the injuries? Selanne's 32 points in 78 games really sticks out, especially considering he put up 90 the following season (albeit in the post-lockout year filled with PPs).

Click to read more...

 

[Nalens Oga]

Coaching and goaltending let us down, but mostly the coaching. The team was fantastic when healthy though, I remember them demolishing the Hawks like 5-0 at the start of the season like it was yesterday.

 

[JackSlater]

Selanne and Kariya were both injured, particularly Selanne's knees. Tony Granato was also not an NHL calibre coach and was a bad fit for a veteran NHL team that didn't need someone learning on the fly.

 

[Puckstop40]

It was a extremely disappointing season simply because of the hype and expectations the team had going in. We have not been a good team since then with the exceptions of 2008 and 2014.
Granato was a terrible coach. Aebischer played pretty well to start but struggled towards the end of the season and playoffs. Injuries are really what did this team in. Selanne was playing on 1 knee and Kariya was battling a wrist most of the season. Forsberg's injury was also a major reason why the season went sideways. When the team was healthy, they were dominant and were at the top of the standings until February. ESPN did "The Season" documentary on them and it is available to watch on youtube.

 

[Sticks and Pucks]

They weren't that much worse than the team from the year before. Kariya and Selanne weren't big factors due to Kariya's injuries and Selanne's regression, Forsberg was injured for quite some time, and they didn't have Patrick Roy. That's probably enough to explain a five point drop in the standings.

 

[Sentinel]

Aebisher in playoffs was the feet of clay of that colossus.

 

[The Panther]

The documentary on YouTube, referred to above, is the thing to watch.

Everyone's saying Granato wasn't a good coach, but... er, why? I know he and Selanne didn't see eye-to-eye, but besides that, what is there to criticize Granato for, or is it just fans' impressions?

Kariya wasn't that bad, but he just never quite got up to full speed. Then he got injured right at the end of the season, which kind of summarized the kind of year it was.

I know Selanne was hobbled somewhat by his leg, but he did play 78 games. It's hard to believe that he scored 5 goals in the second half of the season (!). In fact, 5 goals in his last 41 games. Whoaa...

I know Granato hated him and his ice-time got reduced from around 18 minutes per game early in the year to about 13 late in the year (presumably, he wasn't getting power-play duty much anymore), but still hard to believe that lack of production.

Forsberg was probably the best player in the world around that time, so I think if he'd been healthy and if Kariya had been healthy in the playoffs, they'd have been all right. (Would have helped if Granato hadn't been an ogre to Selanne, too.) But maybe Aebischer was the difference. He did his best, but he wasn't Roy.

They had the puzzle pieces but couldn't get them all correctly assembled, together, to make the puzzle.

 

[MadLuke]

Was it really a goaltending issue ?

Aebisher .924 regular season performance was better than Roy last season (better than Roy most recent seasons), I doubt is .922 save percentage playoff performance (better than Roy previous 2 season) was a big issue either.

The Avalange scored less than 2 goal 4 time against the Shark it is expected that they loose, the Avs scored only 7 goal in 6 game in the second round (they scored 19 in 5 games in the first round against Dallas).

 

[Puckstop40]

Was it really a goaltending issue ?

Aebisher .924 regular season performance was better than Roy last season (better than Roy most recent seasons), I doubt is .922 save percentage playoff performance (better than Roy previous 2 season) was a big issue either.

The Avalange scored less than 2 goal 4 time against the Shark it is expected that they loose, the Avs scored only 7 goal in 6 game in the second round (they scored 19 in 5 games in the first round against Dallas).

It wasn't the the critical reason, but Abby did not have a great 2nd half of the year that carried into playoffs. The Avs were outmatched against the Sharks in general.

 

[ForsbergForever]

I never got why Selanne didn't bite the bullet earlier than the 2004 lockout to have his reconstructive knee surgery. His stats in Colorado and to a certain extent San Jose before that show how crippled he was considering he went back to being a 40 goal scorer afterwards. I guess he was happy to collect his $5-6 million while hobbling around the ice and hurting the team who could have had a healthy body out there.

 

[Terry Yake]

as mentioned earlier, selanne was pretty much playing on one leg the entire season

the 04-05 lockout saved his career

 

[shadow1]

One thing that gets overlooked is that Pierre Lacroix's GM wizardry was beginning to leave him.

After trading away mainstays Stephen Reinprecht and Eric Messier in the off-season, Lacroix went on to make a whopping 9 trades during the 2003-2004 season.

Moving Bates Battaglia for Steve Konowalchuk (in October 2003) was a brilliant move, but Lacroix really screwed up later in the year.

• Darby Hendrickson, Bob Boughner, and Kurt Sauer were all brought in during the month of February in three separate deals, which saw the Avs lose Martin Skoula.

• In March, after trading away futures (including Tom Gilbert) in separate deals for Tommy Salo and Matthew Barnaby, Lacroix made probably the dumbest trade in his tenure, moving Derek Morris and Keith Ballard for Ossi Vaananen and Chris Gratton.

In other words, this wasn't the 2003 Avs team + Kariya & Selanne.

I may be missing someone, but by the end of 2004, the only carry overs from the 2003 season were Sakic, Forsberg, Tanguay, Hejduk, Hinote, Blake, Foote, and Aebischer.

Many people don't realize that the Avalanche had 32 wins on 2/14/2004. The problem is they only won 8 of their final 25 games, likely due in large part to the trades I just outlined.

 

[Ceremony]

Boy those trades just get worse the more you look at them. Also, here you go:

Alternatively:

- Kariya and Selanne were garbage
- Forsberg was injured for most of it
- Aebischer was crap, no matter what anyone says
- Tony Granato was out of his depth
- Todd Bertuzzi

Looking at some of the posts in this thread, there's one about the trades made during this season. In a sort of encapsulation of my points, there's a segment of that documentary showing clips of games from what would be some point after the trade deadline as it covers the Avs' faltering performances at that point. You hear a line of commentary that says "the Avalanche now with a line of Barnaby, Gratton and Kariya." There might have been external reasons for Kariya/Selanne/Forsberg (in particular) for failing to play to the levels that might have been expected of them, but the guy in charge of them was not capable of coaching an NHL team.

Despite various faults with the regular season it was still a good result by the end of it. To me, at the time and vaguely remembering what I can about it, the Bertuzzi/Moore incident just felt too demoralising for the team to rally from. Something that was so savage and so shocking, so unprecedented even, it was like the shock of it just destroyed whatever team spirit might have existed at that point. That's not going to tell you the specific details of why the Avalanche failed to win in the playoffs, but it stands among the worst possible preparations for it.

 

[tony d]

Yeah, I remember that Avs team being a big disappointment. I figured Kariya and Selanne would be amazing on the Avs. Perhaps one of the most disappointing teams in NHL history.

 

[Speedtrials]

Amazing talent that probably knew they only had one year together, and it just didn't work out.

 

[Hockeyville USA]

• Injuries to key players
• Granato having no clue how to make things work
• Roster turnover leading to team not gelling
• Bad trades

 

[jigglysquishy]

• Injuries to key players
• Granato having no clue how to make things work
• Roster turnover leading to team not gelling
• Bad trades

Why are you bumping 7 year old threads to add nothing new?

 

[Hockeyville USA]

Why are you bumping 7 year old threads to add nothing new?

Because I thought of this team after watching the ESPN The Season documentary again plus Keefe's failure in Toronto reminds me of Granato's failure in Colorado.

Additionally, most times I bump threads is in major part because wanting to spark further discussion from forum members who've followed the game longer than I have & who remember those days

 

[ShelbyZ]

• Injuries to key players
• Granato having no clue how to make things work
• Roster turnover leading to team not gelling
• Bad trades

I would change the first bullet to just "Injuries" altogether, and add "Depth" to the list.

While the top 6 of Sakic, Forsberg, Hejduk, Tanguay, Kariya and Selanne was absolutely stacked, beyond them they had:

-Brought in Andrei Nikolishin, which was a solid add for a 2-way 3rd line guy, at least on paper

-Bates Battaglia - who was coming off a season where he dropped from 21 goals to 6.

-Some younger grinders not really known for offense like Hinote, Moore, Hahl, Larsen, etc.

-Rookies in Marek Svatos and Cody McCormick

-Whatever possessed Lacroix to carry not one, but three enforcers in Peter Worrell, Jim Cummins (who came out of retirement to sign) and Chris McAllister (who, to be fair was a Dman but I think he ended up spending a lot of time on the wing as well)


They had little scoring depth beyond the big 6, so it definitely hurt when Selanne struggled and Forsberg and Kariya were injured. The Battaglia for Konowalchuk swap helped some, but their supporting cast was also riddled with injuries (especially late in the season):

-Nikolishin missed 33 games with various ailments, Hahl missed 53 games, Svatos (who likely would've given some support offensively) missed all but the first two and last two games in the RS, Hinote missed a decent chunk of the 2nd half of the season and guys like Larsen, Worrell, McAllister and others contributed to a high number of man games lost.

They ended up with an otherwise career minor leaguer Travis Brigley getting a long cup of coffee, and IIRC at some point around when they brought in Darby Hendrickson they were dressing Cummins, Worrell and McAllister to sit on the bench and watch 3 other forward lines play most of the game. This made sense as to why they felt the need to add Gratton and Barnaby along with Hendrickson before the deadline.

As for the other trades, Salo made sense as insurance since Sauve wasn't ever a viable NHL goaltender and they would've been doomed if Aebischer missed an extended number of games.

I otherwise can't remember and am completely out to lunch on why they felt the need to replace Derek Morris and Martin Skoula with Ossi Vaananen, Bob Boughner and Kurt Sauer on D...

 

[Hockeyville USA]

I would change the first bullet to just "Injuries" altogether, and add "Depth" to the list.

While the top 6 of Sakic, Forsberg, Hejduk, Tanguay, Kariya and Selanne was absolutely stacked, beyond them they had:

-Brought in Andrei Nikolishin, which was a solid add for a 2-way 3rd line guy, at least on paper

-Bates Battaglia - who was coming off a season where he dropped from 21 goals to 6.

-Some younger grinders not really known for offense like Hinote, Moore, Hahl, Larsen, etc.

-Rookies in Marek Svatos and Cody McCormick

-Whatever possessed Lacroix to carry not one, but three enforcers in Peter Worrell, Jim Cummins (who came out of retirement to sign) and Chris McAllister (who, to be fair was a Dman but I think he ended up spending a lot of time on the wing as well)


They had little scoring depth beyond the big 6, so it definitely hurt when Selanne struggled and Forsberg and Kariya were injured. The Battaglia for Konowalchuk swap helped some, but their supporting cast was also riddled with injuries (especially late in the season):

-Nikolishin missed 33 games with various ailments, Hahl missed 53 games, Svatos (who likely would've given some support offensively) missed all but the first two and last two games in the RS, Hinote missed a decent chunk of the 2nd half of the season and guys like Larsen, Worrell, McAllister and others contributed to a high number of man games lost.

They ended up with an otherwise career minor leaguer Travis Brigley getting a long cup of coffee, and IIRC at some point around when they brought in Darby Hendrickson they were dressing Cummins, Worrell and McAllister to sit on the bench and watch 3 other forward lines play most of the game. This made sense as to why they felt the need to add Gratton and Barnaby along with Hendrickson before the deadline.

As for the other trades, Salo made sense as insurance since Sauve wasn't ever a viable NHL goaltender and they would've been doomed if Aebischer missed an extended number of games.

I otherwise can't remember and am completely out to lunch on why they felt the need to replace Derek Morris and Martin Skoula with Ossi Vaananen, Bob Boughner and Kurt Sauer on D...

Every team, especially back then, wanted to get meaner and bigger on the back end

 

[Crosby2010]

If they were healthy, they'd have been fine. At least in the Cup final. Maybe even won the Cup. Because that top 6 is top heavy and you really only need some grinders that chip in some goals on the 3rd and 4th line after that. But with them not being healthy it hurt. Patrick Roy picked a bad time to retire, because I think even with injuries he probably helps them get past San Jose

 

[MadLuke]

Not sure the issue was the bottom 6 at least by the time the playoff arrived.

Hinote-Konowalchuck-Barnaby-Gratton sound like a good veteran bottom 6 squad.
Svatos was an explosive young guy

Specially with the minutes and roles they would have normally had with that top 6 going on.... It is not 1996 squad or the good devils-wings-dallas years with elite bottom 6 players like Ricci, keane either one of Deadmarsh or young or really good/elite in their role at what they do (Simon, Corbet, Yelle) but not bad at all imo versus when they won in 2001 with Messier-Podein-Nieminen-Reinprecht, etc...

Blake-Tanguay and obviously Selanne-Kariya healthy issue seem a good enough reason to fail and explanation.

Aebischer-Salo was not Roy, but they scored only 7 goals in their 6 games against San Josee

 

[DRW895]

2004 postseason was bad time for contenders

 

[frisco]

The hype on this team was unreal going into the season. Predictions of 400+ goals and an easy run to the Stanley Cup were freely talked about as likely possibilities. Obviously, it didn't come to fruition.

My Best-Carey

 

[Danny46]

2003-04 season was odd, and truly the end of the Avalanche, Devils, Red Wings trio era...