As a fan of a struggling sports team, you just hope that the ownership and management of the team you cheer for make proper decisions that are going to help rebuild the team for the future with young and exciting talent. Eventually the team becomes better and the fans become very excited as things are turning around. A lot of times, the fans feel that the team is only one or two key moves away from being a champion. They want to see those moves made now because the waiting has hurt too much.
The Colorado Avalanche could be in that spot now with their fans after a season in which a lot of their young players broke out and had career years. The excitement is there after a playoff appearance and they want to see that repeated. However, the moves that were made in the off-season would not have made a lot of the fans happy or thinking that everything is being done to make this team as good as it can be. It looks more like the Avs are going to rely on their young guys once again and not necessarily look for the white knight to put them over the top.
Just looking at some of the players that had career years for this team and you just shake your head in disbelief about how wrong we were. Combine that with the big names having rebound years as well and you get a team leap-frogging their last-place expectations to finish 8th in the conference.
People may have been a little surprised to see Paul Stastny put up 79 points in 81 games, 47 points from Wojtek Wolski and 44 points from Milan Hedjuk in an injury-filled season. However, no one would have expected 64 points from Chris Stewart, 55 points from Matt Duchene in his rookie campaign, 39 points from T.J. Galiardi, 19 points from Brandon Yip in 32 games or 20 points in 15 games from Peter Mueller.
Avalanche management have clearly given these guys a chance to prove that all of their break-out seasons were not flukes and that they can be a part of a young core that can make hockey relevant again in Denver.
Another guy that will need to prove that he’s worthy of being an NHL starter is Craig Anderson. The journeyman never really had a chance to be a starter before he landed in Denver. All he did to thank his new bosses was play 71 games, win 38 of them with a 2.63 GAA and a save percentage of 920.
Anderson will be one of two guys to watch out for in camp because fans will be hoping that he doesn’t come back down to earth in Year 2 of his tenure with the Avs. The other guy to look out for will be Matt Duchene. Is he ready to become a superstar with a season like we saw with Steven Stamkos, or will he go in the opposite direction and have a sophomore slump?