Chris Humphreys-USA TODAY Sports
When the offseason got underway, things were looking up for the Colorado Avalanche. Coming off of a miserable season that saw them finish near the bottom of the league standings, they hired a new head coach in Patrick Roy and won the lottery to gain the first overall pick in this year’s entry draft.
A few weeks later, things don’t seem to have gotten much better for the Avalanche. This was a team that ranked 26th in goals per game in 2013, 27th in goals against, 24th in power play time, and 20th in their penalty kill percentage, which culminated in them finishing 29th overall in the league standings.
Yet, the front office of the Avalanche have taken very few steps towards improving this club. They selected Nathan MacKinnon no. 1 overall in the draft. While he’ll likely make for a very good player in the coming years, they could have added Seth Jones to a blue line in need of a franchise player like that.
They have defensive talent coming up through the ranks, but none of it carries the weight that a player like Jones could. Even without selecting Jones, the Avalanche failed to go out and add anyone on the free agent or trade markets, at least to this point, that can help them out in their own end.
That’s in addition to the fact that they’re still without a capable starter between the pipes, as Semyon Varlamov looks like nothing more than a failed experiment at this point. He has one year left on his deal to prove he can hold a starting job, something he hasn’t done to this point.
Up front, they added MacKinnon and not much else. Alex Tanguay was brought in via trade, but it’s unknown how much he really has left in the tank. They needed to add depth up front, and haven’t really done it.
It’s still early on in the summer, obviously. But the Avalanche have made very little movement towards getting back to respectability. Perhaps they’re banking on a healthy team being much better on its own in 2013-14, or that Patrick Roy will be a magician and improve this roster without actually upgradin git.
We’ll wait and see how the rest of the summer shakes out, but so far, there isn’t much to be impressed with as far as this new front office regime is concerned for the Colorado Avalanche.
