The Colorado Avalanche haven't had a great start to the season, due to a combination of injuries and because they lost a few key players in the offseason. Let's discuss the issues with the Colorado Avalanche and how to fix them.
Issues with the Colorado Avalanche:
1. Loss of Philipp Grubauer, Brandon Saad, Ryan Graves
2. Injuries early in the season
3. Darcy Kuemper's slow start
4. Lack of Scoring Depth
5. Defense is too soft
The Colorado Avalanche lost a couple key players in the offseason, which is a major reason why they have gotten off to a mediocre start to the season.
Philipp Grubauer signed with the Seattle Kraken and Brandon Saad signed with the St.Louis Blues in Free Agency. Ryan Graves was traded to the New Jersey Devils for a 2021 2nd round pick. To replace Philipp Grubauer, the Avs went out and acquired Darcy Kuemper; Jack Johnson and Darren Helm were added in Free Agency.
Injuries played a big part in why Colorado has had a .500 record out of the gate, and while that is exactly terrible, it is surprising considering Colorado was expected to be one of the best teams in the league this year. Nathan MacKinnon missed the first 2 games of the season due to injury, and Gabriel Landeskog was suspended for 2 games. Cale Makar and Devon Toews are expected to miss time due to injury, as are Mikko Rantanen, Valeri Nischushkin, and Andre Burakovsky.
Darcy Kuemper had very high expectations heading into this season, but he has not lived up to those mighty expectations. In 7 starts, Kuemper has a 4-3 record with a 2.87 GAA and .904 SV%. In his defense, the defense in front of him wasn't great, but still, the Avalanche gave up quite a lot to get Kuemper, and he has been disappointing, to say the least.
The two major issues I see with this team is the lack of scoring depth and the defense is too soft; if Avalanche can address these two issues, they should be back to their winning ways.
Trades:
Colorado Avalanche trade Jack Johnson, Shane Bowers to the Montreal Canadiens for Ben Chiarot, Artturi Lehkonen.
The Avalanche improve their defense with the addition of Ben Chiarot and add more offensive depth with the addition of Artturi Lehkonen.
The Avs also trade Ryan Murray, Kieffer Sherwood to the Arizona Coyotes for Ilya Lyubushkin, Christian Fischer.
The Avalanche adds two physical players who will bring so physicality to the lineup in Lyubushkin and Fischer.
This is how the Lineup looks like after the trades:
G.Landeskog-N.MacKinnon-JT.Compher
A.Lehkonen-N.Kadri-M.Rantanen
M.Kaut-T.Jost-L.O'Connor
S.Ranta-D.Helm-C.Fischer
B.Byram-E.Johnson
B.Chiarot-S.Girard
K.MacDermaid-I.Lyubushkin
D.Kuemper
J.Johansson
(IR) C.Makar, D.Toews, A.Burakovsky, V.Nischuskin, P.Francouz
There are still many players out due to injury but the trades would allow the Avalanche to have a little more depth in the lineup til the injured players are ready to return.
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