On Thursday at Avalanche practice I was working on a Friday feature about righties and lefties in the Avs’ locker room, and how the righties — the longtime minority in the NHL — are the better goal scorers (13 of the 21 all-time greatest snipers are righties, including Mario Lemieux and Mike Bossy, the only ones in the top 21 who didn’t play in 1,000 games). The right-shooting Jarome Iginla leads Colorado with 18 goals and he’s among the top 20 all-time.
Avs center Matt Duchene and others are very adamant about the righties/lefties subject, with Duchene saying he wishes he was a right shot, the side he throws a ball. Same for John Mitchell, who says big-bomb righties Alex Ovechkin, Steven Stamkos, Tyler Seguin and others have a big power-play advantage because most of their teammates are lefties and the power play is played on the right half-wall, and they go to town with the weakside open looks. Nathan MacKinnon, Daniel Briere and Zach Redmond do almost everything from the right side, although MacKinnon has a dominant left leg for soccer and Briere eats with his left hand. Jan Hejda says his hockey coaches in the Czech Republic would hand a kid a stick, and whatever hand the kid took it from would be the top hand on his stick. But Hejda doesn’t like that method, and others such as golf teachers forcing left-shooting hockey players to go lefty on the course. Ryan O’Reilly says he’s a lefty because his older brother was a lefty, and Cal O’Reilly became a lefty because Wayne Gretzky was a lefty.
I’m a righty in everything I do — hockey, baseball, golf, hunting etc., but I tried to get my right-handed son to be a lefty in hockey, so his dominant hand is on the top. Didn’t work. He’s all righty too. Anyway, interesting read Friday. I’ll link that story here when it posts.
I asked Avs coach Patrick Roy about righties and lefties, from a goalie perspective as well as a coach/executive. About being a goaltender, he said with a smile: “Personally it didn’t matter to me. I was confident against right or left.” About being a coach/executive, he veered to the Avalanche’s D prospects, and how (in order of their mention) teenagers Mason Geertsen, Chris Bigras, Ben Storm and Will Butcher — each left-handed shots — might someday compliment the Avs’ righties in Erik Johnson, Tyson Barrie, Stefan Elliott, Zach Redmond and Nate Guenin.
“We have Johnson, Barrie, Elliott, Redmond, Guenin. We feel pretty comfortable on the right side, and they’re young,” Roy said, forgetting Guenin is 31. “On the left D, we have Geertsen who we drafted (and) needs to be signed, we have Bigras, we have Storm playing college (at St. Cloud State), we have Butcher (at DU). We have different Ds that we think eventually (will be NHL material).”
Thursday afternoon I scoured hockeydb.com and found that the 6-foot-4 Geertsen (Vancouver Giants, WHL), 6-1 Bigras (Owen Sound Attack, OHL) and 2014 draftee Kyle Wood (North Bay Battalion, OHL), who goes 6-5, are having big major-junior seasons. No wonder Roy mentioned Geertsen first. Selected 93rd in a 2013 draft that could become Colorado’s best since 2009 (Duchene, O’Reilly, Elliott, Barrie), Geertsen has a team-leading plus-10 and leads all Giants D with 11 goals and 35 points in 56 games. Geertsen, 19, was picked in the fourth round in 2013, after MacKinnon (first), Bigras (second) and goalie Spencer Martin (third), and before Butcher (fifth) and the 6-7 Storm (sixth).
Among the aforementioned D prospects, Wood is the youngest and the only right-handed shot. He’s just 18 but has 16-18-34 (plus-8) in 53 games for North Bay. Bigras is the highest draft pick (32nd in 2013) and will probably get the most attention at training camp this fall. I’ve seen the 5-10 Butcher and 6-7 Storm play, and they’re complete opposites. Butcher is fine-tuned, intelligent small D and Storm is a big D project.
has shown a massive leap forward in development. He logs the toughest matchups among VAN D while also playing PP and PK.
— Cody Nickolet (@DubFromAbove)
The Avs also have 2011 drafted defensemen Duncan Siemens (first round) and Gabriel Beaupre (sixth) in the system, along with unsigned prospects recently drafted-out-of-Sweden Wilhelm Westlund (2013, seventh round) and Anton Lindholm (2014, fifth).
Bottom line: The Avs, judging from Roy’s statement and what you see on paper and online, have some impressive young D to get excited about. Granted, the organization has drafted poorly in mid-to-late rounds the past 10 years, but the 2013 and 2014 classes might be different. You might see some real positive results.
NHL brain. Very steady. Positionally sound. Great reach. 3-zone defender. Knows when and when not to take risks.
— Steve Kournianos (@TheDraftAnalyst)
“We had the players that we had when we took the job,” Roy said of he and Joe Sakic, both now in their second years as the top executives. “What we’re looking at right now is the depth, who’s coming up and the future of this team.”
One other note. Roy said he wants a big center or two. “You look at our centers; they’re all close to 6-feet,” he said. “We’d like to have a 6-2 or 6-3 center.”
Great time to bring up Geertsen, 3 points yesterday (2G, 1A) including goal in OT.
— Jackie (@tigervixxxen)
