A longer-than-expected off-season has seen the Colorado Avalanche state time and time again their desire to add quality left-handed defensemen to the fold and now they have signed one in Francois Beauchemin. The 35-year old Beauchemin departs the Anaheim Ducks, his second stint with the team, after spending parts of the last five seasons there as he has inked a 3-year, $13.5 million ($4.5M annual average value) with Colorado.
The aging Beauchemin was a high-end two-way defenseman as recently as two years ago but his play has begun to slip significantly, especially last season. Still, the Avalanche felt he had enough to provide the roster in terms of veteran leadership and ability they are currently missing on the left side of their defense.
Beauchemin immediately becomes the elder statesman on a blue line that didn’t need one with Brad Stuart already on the roster and becomes another mentor for recently-acquired 20-year old rearguard Nikita Zadorov and upcoming top defensive prospects Chris Bigras and Duncan Siemens.
The hard-nosed and gritty Beauchemin’s addition potentially slides Nate Guenin off the opening night lineup card, which is sort of addition by subtraction, but beyond that it is difficult to see where this signing makes the Avalanche significantly better today or tomorrow.
From a contract standpoint, because Beauchemin is already 35, his contract slides into the 35+ contract status, meaning the salary and all bonuses will continue to count against the salary cap, regardless of whether or not the player is still playing for the team or not.
Beauchemin’s career statistics are below:
4 Comments
How did his play slip “significantly” last season? He put up more points in less games than the previous season. And he was stil a +17 last year…
Dario
His shooting % was an outlier. He shot at 11.5% (with a PDO of 102.8) so points and especially goals will go back down. His 5v5 scoring went from 12 points to 16 despite shooting at an insane rate.
He played 1.5 minutes of PP per game. He won’t do that in Colorado (a rebuttle to highest ice time and points thing). He had another 2.2 min per game short handed which probably continues.
the biggest concern with him is simply his age. If he were 32 then I wouldn’t suspect he would regress as quickly as he should be expected to from 35 to 38. He’s already shown regression with possession metrics that his proponents counter with ice time and points. Like all aging defensemen he’s going to slow more and his game will regress especially against tough competition. Now if he was a depth D for the #4 that could move to a 5/6 role later in the season then it would make even better sense. As it is the organization plans to put him up against Toews, Kane and Tarasenko. All while not being behind a really good two way centerman like Getzlaf that can help win low battles and break out plays.
It’s a large risk and while his 14 to 15 stats may not represent a significant slip it’s not unreasonable to believe that coming off a contract year in to his 35 year old season with a new team that his performance will suffer.
All we need is another 3 year contract for a Stuart clone–sliding into oblivion. Of course, Ray Bourque was old. Maybe we have a slim chance of success.
Busted Twigg
The wildcard in this discussion is Zadarov. We have a 20 year old kid in the mix for the top 4. He likely has top pairing talent, but needs some experience to get there. If he takes a big jump during the season this year, it could put Beauchemin in that 3-4 sweet spot with Barrie. He won’t get the killer defensive assignments and can focus on getting the puck out of the defensive end against 2nd and 3rd line players. If this happens, the Avs are sitting pretty on the blue line. If it doesn’t, we’re still better off than last year because two of Holden/Guenin/Redmond/Stuart will be in the stands watching (or maybe in the AHL).