When in the name of those 135 empty seats in Section 316 is the Avalanche going to make a trade?
Sure, we’re spoiled.
But, in this town, the Avs do not wear mediocrity well.
If Pierre Lacroix taught me anything about hockey during his remarkable decade on the job, it was to demand that Colorado contend for the Stanley Cup each and every NHL season.
So he moves upstairs, and the Avs go straight downhill? We should now be happy if Colorado merely qualifies for the playoffs? That’s an insult to Lacroix’s fine legacy.
In an important game for both teams, the Avalanche edged Phoenix 4-3 on Wednesday night.
And there’s your franchise’s problem right there.
Detroit, the team we love to hate, is coming to the Pepsi Center this weekend, when there will be a celebration of the 500th sold-out home game in Avalanche history and a painful reminder of the way this team was.
The rival that gets the blood of the Red Wings boiling now is Nashville, famous for honky-tonks, not hockey rinks. And that ain’t right.
There are young guns in Colorado who are worth the price of admission. Center Paul Stastny scored twice against the Coyotes. Peter Budaj seems to have won the confidence of coach Joel Quenneville, notoriously tough on goalies. Get your replica sweater of winger Wojtek Wolski and beat the rush.
“The coaching staff looks for us to step up to the expectations of this franchise,” said Budaj, fully aware of the pressure on him, Stastny and Wolski. “This organization always has the highest goal: win the Stanley Cup. The team helps us in every way off the ice, and we have to perform on the ice.
“The season so far has been up and down. We win some. We lose some. And that’s not good enough. We have more potential than what we show in the standings.”
The salary cap was rigged to humble the Avalanche.
But the new economic rules have been in effect for one full season and half of another, which makes complaining about how life’s not fair for Colorado sound like stale whining.
I’m so over crying about the departures of Adam Foote, Peter Forsberg and Rob Blake, who all seem to have aged quickly since leaving town.
It’s past time, however, the Avs learn how to prosper on a tighter budget. Wasn’t Francois Giguere brought in as the Colorado’s new general manager because he had a head for numbers that could make him a wizard with the NHL’s new math?
Blaming all the team’s mediocrity on the money thrown away on goalie Jose Theodore is so yesterday, a fascination more tired than who’s holding hands with Paris Hilton on “Entertainment Tonight.”
Back in the day, Colorado could bully its way to the front of the line for a trade when Claude Lemieux or Ray Bourque was on the block.
That was then. Now, the Avalanche needs to show a little more imagination in acquiring talent.
Phoenix took a chance on veteran Yanic Perreault, a center with a reputation as a face-off specialist, when nobody seemed to want him on the free-agent market. And for a salary of $700,000, a pittance by the current standards of pro sports, Perreault has played like an all-star for the Coyotes.
In a Northwest Division that takes parity to ridiculous extremes, there’s every reason to believe the Avs can win the division and claim the conference’s No. 3 playoff seed if Giguere can acquire a defenseman who has the back of the team’s young guns.
Fail to make a trade, however, and it’s not certain Colorado will qualify for the postseason, because the Avs are not only skating hard to catch Minnesota and Calgary, but one ugly slip could cause them to fall behind Phoenix or St. Louis.
“It could be an 82-game battle,” Quenneville said.
For what seemed like forever, anytime you bought a ticket to an Avalanche game, it felt like being a witness to hockey history in the making.
After all those memorable years, it’s hard to accept an NHL franchise that now seems content with marking time, while we all wait for Budaj, Stastny and Wolski to grow up.
Staff writer Mark Kiszla can be reached at 303-954-1053 or mkiszla@denverpost.com.
