Nothing lasts forever. All good things must come to an end. What goes up must come down. All those clichés are immutable, but for a giddy long while, it seemed the success of the Avalanche would be an exception.
There was another basic law in Denver: The Avs would always make the playoffs, always compete for the Stanley Cup.
Then reality struck. The Avalanche will not be in this year’s Stanley Cup playoffs. It was made official Saturday night when Colorado was eliminated as the Calgary Flames clinched the eighth and final playoff spot in the Western Conference.
Nobody can accuse the Avalanche of going down without a fight. The Avs gave an Alamo-style defense of their playoff streak, doing about all they could the past month to sneak into the final spot. Trouble was, they got zero help from anybody. A Minnesota Wild team that had a nine-game winning streak lost back-to-back home games to Calgary last week. A Canucks team that rarely lost at home all season couldn’t beat Calgary last Saturday night at Vancouver. Western Conference powers Detroit and Nashville went into Calgary two weeks ago and couldn’t get a win.
But the Avs can’t moan about that. They put themselves in the position of having to rely on others to make the playoffs. All season, the Avs were just a little late to the party.
That’s what it all comes down to: Early in the season, the Avs would fall behind in games before awakening too late. At the end of the season, they had wiped the sleep from their eyes, but didn’t get moving in time to make the playoffs.
Some of the seeds that caused the Avs to miss the playoffs were planted long ago. Some reasons were natural, no fault of their own. Some were self-inflicted. Some were because of a changed NHL marketplace. Here is a look at some of the bigger causes of the end of the Avs’ playoff run:
No fault factors
If Teemu Selanne hadn’t played on one leg in 2002-03, resulting in an awful season, the Avs might have re-signed him and he could be posting the kind of superb statistics for Colorado he does now for Anaheim.
If Steve Konowalchuk hadn’t developed a rare heart condition, prompting him to retire before this season, he might have made the difference in the Avs making the playoffs. If Jordan Leopold – the principal player acquired from Calgary for Alex Tanguay – hadn’t been hurt virtually all season, he could have lifted Colorado’s defense.
Self-inflicted wounds
The Avs were the beneficiary of many great trades made by former general manager Pierre Lacroix. They won two Stanley Cups largely because of the deals that brought Patrick Roy, Ray Bourque, Sandis Ozolinsh, Claude Lemieux and Rob Blake to Colorado for a relative pittance.
But some didn’t work out as well, and played a part in the team’s decline. The deal that brought Theo Fleury to the Avs in 1999 included a draft choice named Robyn Regehr, who has developed into one of the game’s best defensemen. The Avs made the Western Conference finals with Fleury, but not so much because of his play. After a couple of months, he was gone, to the New York Rangers as a free agent.
In training camp of 2002, Lacroix traded Chris Drury and Stephane Yelle to Calgary for Derek Morris, Dean McAmmond and Jeff Shantz. Lacroix wanted a defenseman to replace Bourque and re-establish the “Big Three” on the blue line, combining Morris with Blake and Adam Foote.
Morris was no Bourque, and was traded a year and a half later. Meanwhile, Yelle has been the same reliable forward for the Flames he was in Denver, and Drury is a major star with Buffalo.
Acquiring goalie Jose Theodore before the trading deadline last season also has bitten Colorado, saddling it with a huge salary for a player who has turned into a backup goalie.
Post-lockout woes
If the NHL hadn’t had such lousy TV ratings, the NHL lockout that canceled the 2004-05 season probably wouldn’t have happened. If the other NHL GMs hadn’t frittered so much money on subpar players, the escalation of salaries wouldn’t have happened, and neither would the lockout or a salary cap.
Those things aren’t the Avs’ fault. And yet, it’s clear they weren’t well-prepared for a post-lockout NHL. They said goodbye to Foote and Peter Forsberg for nothing when the lockout ended. They let Blake go for nothing after last season.
The exodus of that kind of talent – with nothing in return – is difficult to overcome. The Avs almost made the playoffs anyway. But, in the end, they came up just a little short.
