November Report: Bumpy Road

Anyone following the Avalanche knows that the month of November was much less kind to the team than October was.  After one of the best starts in franchise history, with a 10-2-2 (22 pts.) October, the Avs went 5-6-3 (13 pts.) in November.  There are a lot of reasons why this drop-off happened, but here are a couple of the standouts:

Injuries:  Just between Hejduk, Jones, Liles, Mcleod, Tucker, Cumiskey, Foote, and Stewart, the Avalanche has lost 49 man games due to injury.  David Jones is in the worst shape of the bunch with his recent knee injury, and he may be out for the rest of the season.  His case is particularly disappointing because he was just starting to show some promise with his 10 goals and 6 assists in 23 games played.  He also had two of the three short-handed goals that have been scored this season by the Avs, so he will definitely be a loss on the penalty-kill.

This Every team is going to have people get hurt.  It is just part of the game.  The difference is that good teams have people step up when their teammates go out.  The Avalanche do not have a whole lot of depth in their possible minor league call-ups, so this scoring burden will mostly fall on the shoulders of the youngsters Duchene and O’Riley.  I will talk a little more about Duchene in a second, but O’Riley does seem to have lost a bit of the swagger he had in October.  After an 11 point October, Ryan only had 6 points in November, and he is currently on a 4 game scoring skid.  We do not want to demand too much from our 18 year-olds, but maybe we as fans got spoiled a bit by his fast start out of the gate.

I would put Marek Svatos in the stepping up list, but he has not really shown any long stretches of consistently strong play in quite some time.  Needing him to step up, and actually having the ability to do it are two completely different things.  Svatos is like a flower that never blooms.  We have waited patiently for Svatos to break out, but all he seems to do is break (or injure) a limb.  Last season was his longest with only 69 games played.  I think most Avs fans are tired of waiting for Svatos to be a standout.  Five years in the league is a big enough data sample to be able to say that he is not ever going to be a 30 goal scorer again for this team.  He is an unrestricted free agent after this season, and I am fairly confident that this will be his last season with the Avalanche.

Consistent 60 minute play:  It has become major cliche in sports that everyone says they need to play strong and consistent for the entire length of their contest.  If any of you watch Avalanche broadcasts, you have heard the phrase (or a derivative) from announcers and player interviews, “We (They) must play a full 60 minutes to win,” just about every night.  In October, the Avalanche struggled at the beginning of games, and had to fight back to take wins.  As of late, the Avs look good early, get ahead by a couple of goals, and then falter in the 3rd period.  During the month of November the Avalanche was outscored 21-6 in the 3rd period.  I am not sure what the deal is with this team not having the energy to finish games strong, but they really have to find a way to stay tough late in games.  They have tried taking shorter shifts, and that really has not changed much, so it seems like the problem is more mental.  They get into the dangerous mode of sitting back a bit too much with a lead.  You know what they say about the “prevent” defense…it prevents you from winning.  I know that is cheesy, but it does happen a lot in all sports.

The Month of November was not all bad for the Avalanche though.  It is a little early to tell, but it looks like Matt Duchene may finally be getting the breaks that he deserves.  He is on a 3 game point streak with 3 goals and 1 assist in those games.  In many of the losses where it looked like the team just did not have the legs, Duchene was often the best skater on the ice for the Avalanche.  He seems to be a real competitor on every single shift.  His vision is also getting a lot better on the ice, as he has showed some real good passing ability around the net.  I think we may start to see him break out a bit and really be a focal point of the scoring for the Avalanche during the rest of this season.  He just skates and stick handles too good to continue to be denied like he has been for much of the last two months.

One of the other brighter spots has been the contribution of Wojtek Wolski.  I have read a lot of criticism of Wolski on Twitter during the games and in some other Avs blogs, and it is a little unfair.  He may have times during games where he makes puck handling mistakes, or does not look like he is skating as hard as he should be, but he is definitely contributing.  Wolski is currently the second leading scorer on the team behind Stastny with 23 points.  He had a point in 10-14 games in November, and he is a +5 on the year.  His points are mostly coming from assists lately, with only 2 goals in November, so hopefully he can get back on track in that department.

Even with the rocky November the Avalanche are still right in the playoff picture.  The team is currently holding 2nd place in the Northwest Division with a 15-8-5 record (35 pts.), and they are 4th place in the Western Conference.  They are only 2 points behind Calgary for the top spot in the division, but the Flames do have 2 games in hand.  They also still have to be considered one of the better teams in the NHL right now, because only 5 other clubs in the entire league have more points than the Avs.  That is a far cry from finishing last place in the West a season ago.

Hopefully the Avs can continue their momentum from Monday night’s big shutout against the Lightning, when they face the Florida Panthers tonight.  The puck will drop shortly after 5:30pm mtn.  It will be Craig Anderson’s first trip back to his old barn since signing with the Avalanche this past off-season.  He should be pretty fired up to face his old team, so look for a big game from Andy.  The Panthers have not been particularly good so far this year.  So, the Avs, with a disciplined game, should be able to come out of this one with another 2 points.

I welcome and encourage your comments.  Please feel free to tell me your opinion on things, what I have all wrong, or what I have missed.  Thanks for reading, and come back often.  I always post the highlights from the previous game as soon as I can.

Please also check out Jay Vean’s new website and latest podcast at www.AvsHockeyPodcast.com.