Denver Post sports writer Adrian Dater posts his Avs Mailbag on Mondays during the 2009-10 NHL season.
for the Avs Mailbag.
Time to buy a new Avs jersey, Adrian. These guys are for real; time to open up the wallet. I want to have the jersey of someone the Avs will keep. Who do you think on the current squad is the MOST likely to be around for five or more years with the Avs?
— Craig, Colorado Springs
Craig – This is the thing with doing Mailbags, where the questions come in on a Friday and games like the kind that happened to the Avs were on Saturday: the questions can look kind of bad.
at home Saturday was just an awful performance, and it was the fifth time in seven games that Colorado did NOT get a victory. So, the assertion that they are “for real” probably isn’t holding up right now.
But as for the jersey I’d buy, of a guy who will be around a while: I’d . Yeah, I think Matt Duchene will be around here for that long, too, and will get his game going again, but O’Reilly has “captain some day” written all over him.
By the way, I love . Yeah, the Avs look a bit like the Skating Blueberries in ’em, but I still love ’em. I would wear one in a heartbeat, but can’t be caught dead in any Avs apparel — totally against the rules of journalism. But I love the colors, and I can’t think of any other team uniform they quite look like. Maybe a bit of the Atlanta Thrashers’ sometimes-jerseys, but that’s about it.
Yo, Adrian. Of the 50 all-time leaders in NHL points, only FOUR are active right now, and they’re all old as dirt. Which of the current crop of players do you think has the best chance to crack that list? Any Avs?
— Craig, Washington
Craig – Well, let’s start with Sidney Crosby and Alex Ovechkin. Those are your “No duh” picks. I think Marian Hossa might get there, too. He’s got 719 points now and is only 30. Bernie Federko currently holds the No. 50 spot on the all-time scoring list with 1,130 points. Joe Thornton and Dany Heatley might both get there, and so too might Ilya Kovalchuk. Pavel Datsyuk and Henrik Zetterberg of Detroit both have shots, and I think John Tavares is going to be a regular 40-50 goal scorer soon.
Could Matt Duchene get there some day? He’s only got one point in his last 10 games, so I’m a little sour on that possibility at the moment. But he’s also only 18.
What would be cool is to see the Avs finally don the old Nordiques jersey. The NFL consistently has its teams wear original jerseys. Do you know if the NHL would ever consider this? It would be neat to see the old Whalers, Jets, etc., at least for a few games. Thanks!
— Eric, Littleton
Eric – I wouldn’t mind seeing that at all. I think it would be fun and a nice tribute to the former manifestations of the Avs. Quebec might get its own team again some day, though. Former Quebec owner Marcel Aubut is getting involved with trying to get a new arena built in Quebec City, and I know that former Avs executive and Nordiques great Michel Goulet is involved with that, too.
I wish everyone could spend a night or two in Quebec City during the winter. Yeah, you’ll freeze your butt off, so dress warm. But it’s unbelievably pretty, especially when people are skating out on the pond by the Chateau Frontenac, which still goes down as the nicest hotel I’ve ever stayed at. I had dinner one night about eight years ago with Aubut at the tremendous Cafe de la Paix, for a story about what it was like there five years after the Nordiques moved to Denver, and it was simply indescribable. So, anything to honor the Nords and Quebec City in general, I’m all for it.
Could there possibly be a bigger surprise in the NHL so far than the Avs? This was a really bad team a year ago. So far, they’re playing inspired, exciting hockey, with an 18-year-old kid leading the charge (Ryan O’Reilly). I was expecting a middle-of-the-pack team at best, and they may end up there. But it sure doesn’t look like that’s going to happen right now.
— Bob Kauffman, Lafayette
Bob – This question has been transferred to the “He Wrote it Before the Avs Looked Like the 1974 Washington Capitals the Other Night” pile.
What is it with the Avs being 40-minute men? it happened again, 15-3 shot advantage for the opposition. But for Craig Anderson, that game would never have gone to OT. Are they fatigued? Apathetic? Is it coaching? Leadership? It’s not youth, because I’ve watched this for years now: Play two periods, get dominated in one. It drives me crazy!
— Paul, Lafayette
Paul – This is the problem with fast starts by teams that weren’t supposed to do anything. It automatically shifts a lot of fans into “We’re good, we’re really really good!” mode. But when you drill down deeper into the numbers of the Avs’ fast start, you start to get into some fool’s gold.
Two weeks ago, the Avs were on top of the entire NHL standings, but were averaging the fewest shots per game in the league (25.1) and were allowing more than 35 per game. But , and everybody started thinking this team was for real. Now, the Avs have gone five of seven games without a win and everybody’s starting to panic a little. They weren’t as good as that early record, and I don’t think they’re as bad as they’ve looked of late, so the answer for me is this team is going to be in a battle for the eighth spot, at best. But that, to me, is a big victory from what I and many
other “experts” had predicted for this team.
As for getting outshot in the third, it’s a point that drives me nuts: teams sit back with a lead and stop doing the things that got it for them in the first place — under the guise that “taking risks” will jeopardize that lead. It’s dumb, but that’s what most teams do.
Hi, Adrian. As an Avalanche fan who has followed the team since its Quebec days, I’d like to throw out another suggestion regarding poor attendance and get your thoughts. Considering that Colorado fans inherited a championship team in year one (1995-96), and a team that won two Stanley Cups and only failed to make it to the Western Conference finals once in their first six years, could this be a case of the fan base simply being spoiled? Was the bar simply set too high?
— Chris, Toronto
Chris – The attendance issue is more complex than just blaming it on that. The economy still really stinks, and regular-season sporting events are taking a hit all over. A lot of NBA teams aren’t drawing flies right now either (and rightfully so — the NBA is just awful to watch now and has been for years).
But yes, I do think it’s natural that some Avs fans got spoiled. I mean, they were handed a Stanley Cup team their first year in town and got another one five years later, with Western finals appearances in six of the first seven years! Only in 1998 did the Avs fail to make the Western finals from 1996-2002.
But I really think it has more to do with just wins and losses, as to why the fans aren’t showing up still. Tickets are just too expensive, and “in this economy” (which has become a cliche in media stories of the last year or so) hundred-dollar tickets to regular-season hockey games are going to go unsold.
A.D. – I skated at the Pepsi Center over the weekend in an adult tourney and noticed (along with other teammates) that the ice surface is quite active, giving the puck a ton of bounce. After noticing this, I was watching and noticed that the puck was bouncing all over the place for them as well. Is this a common complaint that you hear from some of the home or even visiting players? Also, are there any particular rinks around the NHL that are notoriously known for having bouncy ice? Thanks.
— Mike, Denver
Mike – The Pepsi Center ice generally gets pretty good marks from players, but like any arena, there are nights when it’s better/worse than others. Usually, the night after a concert, there are complaints about the ice, with all the rearranging of the deck chairs from the final encore to the drop of the first puck.
Madison Square Garden is notorious for having some of the worst ice in the league, and you still hear players complain about places like Dallas and Anaheim and L.A. Edmonton has always had the reputation as the best ice in the league, partly because they don’t share the building with any NBA team and because of the cold, dry Canadian weather.
Adrian – Because hockey is such a fast-moving game, how is it possible for the statisticians of the game to record all those stats? For example, at the same time a hit is made on one end of the ice, a giveaway or takeaway is occurring on another part of the ice and/or teams are making line changes, all at the same time with one player playing 37 seconds on the shift while another only playing 25 seconds. All of this is happening at the same time. Who and how many people does it take to record all that information?
— Rich Carlson, Westminster
Rich – There are roughly 6-8 statisticians every game that track all that stuff. They all wear the same dark sportcoats with NHL patches on them. One is watching for one stat to occur, and another is doing another, and so on.
Adrian Dater has covered the Colorado Avalanche since the team moved to Denver in 1995. for the Avs Mailbag.
