Why the Avs will regress next year

[tucker3434]

Of course it's unlikely the avs finish 3rd in the NHL again. I'll wait to see the off season moves before I make any predictions though. If they retain everyone and add a top 4 defender, they could be right back up near the top.

 

[Lemonlimey]

Unless they win the Central division again they will have "regressed", so thats certainly a safe prediction to make. Whats funny to me is how the accepted narrative seems to be the Avs were a "lucky" team this year. We probably had the worst injury set you never heard of this season, missing 2-3 top 6 forwards concurrently most of the year including the playoffs. The only time the team was actually healthy they went 14-2 to start the season, if they had Duchene, Mitchell, and Barrie (just forgetting Tanguay who was on pace for 60 points) they quite likely see the second round. PDO might mean luck but it can also reflect a play style, one thats risky for sure but thats the Avalanche style scoring off the rush with speed and higher quality chances while allowing low % shots on defense. No one expects the same wild regular season success next year, but the playoffs will just come down to injuries and if they actually get "lucky" for once they could go farther.

 

[Love]

Im very interested to see what they do this offseason. Especially curious as to how they will upgrade the defence.

Hard to imagine them regressing all that much though. Their top 6 is still good even if they dont have Stastny back:

ROR-Duchene-Parenteau
Landeskog-Mackinnon-FA signing

They'll be fine.

 

[ThatAvsGamer]

Im very interested to see what they do this offseason. Especially curious as to how they will upgrade the defence.

Hard to imagine them regressing all that much though. Their top 6 is still good even if they dont have Stastny back:

ROR-Duchene-Parenteau
Landeskog-Mackinnon-FA signing

They'll be fine.

tanguay on the 2nd line. I hope we could find someone to ROR spot on the 1st line and have O'reilly on the 3rd and rotate 3 lines. Our D is something that needs fixing.

 

[Mc5RingsAndABeer]

I do think they overachieved this year, but their core is super young and will progress quite a bit. Overall I don't think they'll fail next year.

 

[Bardown warrior]

They will regress and still be in the playoffs... According to advanced stats their play wasnt sustainable, but that comes with a young team. Avs will be a force to be reckoned with down the road for years to come.

 

[OttawaRoughRiderFan*]

Because, like so many things in life, it is 2 steps forward, one back.

 

[ecemleafs]

advanced stats showed they were lucky this year, but by next year their young stars will be older and most likely better.

 

[The Mars Volchenkov]

There's a reason they have all that cap space, because of all those young guys on ELCs and bridge deals. What do you think will end up happening when these guys all need to be paid, and rightly so? Yeah. If the Avs do go after better d-men in FA (which they have to if they wanna have any hope of repeating last year), they had better be on short term deals.

They have 25M in cap space with 17 players signed. Cap space isn't a concern. Duchene, Varly, and Landeskog have long-term extensions on very fair deals. O'Reilly already has a high cap hit, so not much will change there. The question is what they do with Stastny. Beyond that, they're in very good shape with the cap.

 

[not a troll]

I get that Varlamov's season will be hard to replicate but why would some of the skaters have a hard time improving on their career years?

 

[chet1926]

Let the hater's hate.

We have too good of a core to take a massive step backwards. There is a decent chance they don't win the division like they did this year, but 95pts + is low end realistic with an amount closer to 100 pts+ within reach.

We still have a core consisting of Landeskog, MacKinnon, Duchene, ROR (there is like a 99% chance he is retained), EJ, Barrie and Varlamov.

Plus we have a good set of complimentary players in PAP, Tanguay, McGinn (he'll be resigned), Mitchell, Talbot, Hejda, Holden (you laugh but he had 25 pts in like 50 games and turned into a solid dman by the end of the year).

Not to mention we have tons of cap space to attempt to bring Stastny back.

The only thing we need an upgrade in is defense. Which I'm sure will be addressed at the draft via trade and or through UFA.

I can assure you with Roy behind the bench we will play hard every night. Roy will not allow mediocrity, its not part of his vocabulary. The Avs will be competitive next year, mark my word.

 

[Bullseyes]

Will they miss the playoffs? I doubt it. Regress? I'd be surprised if they didn't. Just like their playoff loss was predictable, they weren't nearly as good as the wins-loss/points said they were. Still, they can make some changes to their roster, so we'll so what they look when the season starts.

 

[HockeyFan100]

Take their series against Minnesota, and extend it over 82 games.

You don't get to play the same team for 82 games in a regular season. [MOD]

 

[Stories]

They could regress a little bit , its possible , but i dont see them go down in flame . They could finish second or 3rd of their division .... If that's what we call regressing , yeah they could regress .

Particularly with good teams like Chicago and St Louis in the central, I'm not expecting the Avalanche to win the division again. They compete for a top 3 spot and I'll be happy even if it's regressing.

 

[Oberyn]

Regression might be probable, but it won't be major. I think the Avs will be better than the Blues in a couple years to be honest if they shore up the D, we can't really match their offensive firepower.

 

[tucker3434]

Take their series against Minnesota, and extend it over 82 games.

Because it's normal to play a playoff team 82 times a year?

 

[quackquackquack]

Thank you Colorado...Thank you for taking this topic off of the Ducks' shoulders.

 

[ThatGuy22]

Avs played without Duchene for five games, Mitchell for all seven games and without Barrie for five games. I'm not sure why you would argue that this series is more representative of Avs than any other random seven game stretch. Avs were two minutes from winning the series. It was pretty much a coinflip.

There will probably be at least five new names on the team when next season starts. Most of the core will be one year older and more likely than not one year better. There is no magical link to this years team where what happened this year will affect what happens next year.

Of course it's unlikely that Avs will finish third overall next year. You don't need corsi/fenwick/PDO to figure that out. You just have to look at what players they have signed. That doesn't mean Avs will be a worse team next year. Most likely they'll get better next year and the year after.

They were also two minutes from being ousted in 5.

 

[Gigantor The Goalie]

Will they miss the playoffs? I doubt it. Regress? I'd be surprised if they didn't. Just like their playoff loss was predictable, they weren't nearly as good as the wins-loss/points said they were. Still, they can make some changes to their roster, so we'll so what they look when the season starts.

I think anyone could predict a playoff loss when the team is missing their best forward, their best offensive defenseman gets taken out for the rest of the series by trash, and their missing two top 9 forwards. Plus Hejda playing with a serious hand injury.

 

[The Mars Volchenkov]

They were also two minutes from being ousted in 5.

No, they weren't, unless 3 wins would have won the series.

 

[BHD]

[MOD]

Because it's normal to play a playoff team 82 times a year?

Because it's normal for top-heavy teams with questionable defence to still win games over an 82 schedule, due in part to their goaltender bailing them out on a number of occasions?

 

[The Mars Volchenkov]

That wasn't my point. Clever response though.



Because it's normal for top-heavy teams with questionable defence to still win games over an 82 schedule, due in part to their goaltender bailing them out on a number of occasions?

The Avs had 10 guys with at least 10 goals, 5 with 20 goals, and that was with Tanguay missing the majority of the season. I wouldn't say they're top heavy at all. Maybe in the playoffs when they were without Duchene, Mitchell, and then Barrie, but that's going to happen to most teams missing players like that.

I don't think you finish 4th in goals if you're top heavy.

 

[boredmale]

There is nothing to regress to. Avs will not have the same team next year as they had this year. The hockey world resets every July.

Avs had 112 points last year, if they get 111 or less they regressed.

It's not really that much a stretch to say Avs won't get more points then they did last year. The hard bet would be saying they will improve on that

 

[Bear of Bad News]

There is nothing to regress to. Avs will not have the same team next year as they had this year. The hockey world resets every July.

That's slightly true, but mostly false. Otherwise, the standings would show zero year-over-year correlation.

As to the theory posed in the OP, duh. A team that's been terrible for many seasons just finished third overall in the league, and you say that they're going to not do that well next year? Gosh.

 

[Pyrophorus]

Since just about every HF fan said we will regress due to Corsi &c.

backatcha.