Avalanche prospects are primed to provide key assistance in coming years

The NHL offseason has come to a screeching halt as teams work their way to arbitration hearings and then the vast emptiness that is the remaining schedule sets in.

With the draft and the slow drip that was 2020 NHL free agency all pretty much over, it’s that time where guys like me try to make sense of it all. So here I am, trying to make sense of it all, starting with Colorado’s newest draft class and where that leaves the Avalanche’s farm system.

Prospect pipelines are a funny thing. They’re built entirely on the projection of teenagers into adults, not only on the ice but off it, as well. It’s a guessing game. A game that decides the future of the league and the safety of the jobs of the people put in charge of building those pipelines.

The Avs have done okay for themselves at the draft table in the last decade or so. They crushed the 2009 draft and then really only found hits in the first round the rest of the way. Colorado’s history of rapid promotion of its first rounders mostly paid dividends with Tyson Jost being the only one who didn’t find immediate success in the NHL.

Perhaps the biggest reason Colorado sits at the forefront of the Stanley Cup conversation right now is the decisions made on draft day. Gabe Landeskog, Nathan MacKinnon, Mikko Rantanen and Cale Makar are all leading men in this act of Avalanche hockey and all were plucked from the draft.

As those players begin to eat up a huge portion of Colorado’s salary cap in the next few years, it will be vital for the Avs to produce NHL talent from their farm system. This is arguably as stacked as that farm system has ever been and could mean an even better Avs team in a few years.

Let’s see where the system sits currently:

Before we keep going, it’s important not to make too much of the positions, especially at forward. Lots of these guys play all over their lineups, especially the junior players who are the best on their team and heavily relied upon.

That said, let’s dip into the strengths and weaknesses of this group.

Strengths

Goaltending

This is a relative strength just because the team is hoping Adam Werner contributes to the NHL team if needed this upcoming season and Justus Annunen is among the better goaltending prospects in the league.

Both Shmakov and Miner are considered long shots to even get ELCs, let alone become NHL players.

Despite that, the combination of Werner and Annunen is a better situation than the Avs’ goaltending prospects have been since the days of Calvin Pickard and Sami Aittokallio. That duo serves as a warning of what can go wrong but there is a very real chance Annunen becomes the best homegrown goaltender in Avalanche history.

Defense

There aren’t a ton of players here but the ones who are present are pretty intriguing. Bowen Byram has a legitimate claim as one of the very best defensemen not already in the NHL. On the right side, the Avalanche has rare depth.

Conor Timmins would have ascended to full-time NHL status on the majority of NHL teams last season. He might still next year despite Colorado’s talent-laden and experienced group. Justin Barron and Drew Helleson are both good skaters with great size but Barron is a natural puck mover and Helleson is looking for any reason to put the opposition through the glass.

The other players are longshots, though not without their intrigue on their own. Zhuravylov solidified himself as a KHL regular at age 19, a rare feat in that league, and could decide to jump to North America when his contract expires in 2022.

Leivermann and Clurman are both manning the blueline at Notre Dame with Clurman being named captain. Leivermann continues to produce enough offense to think he could be a player down the road and Clurman’s circuitous and extended development path has him on track to graduate sometime before his 30th birthday.

Overall, this is about the guys at the top, specifically Byram and Timmins as two players ready to graduate. Barron could follow Timmins’ path but needs a strong D+1 year at Halifax. Helleson is still probably a couple of years away as he works his way through his Boston College career.

Star Talent

Between Byram and Newhook, they have two players who you could easily envision as NHL All-Stars in the future. Not many teams competing for the Stanley Cup have that caliber of talent at the top of its system.

That both players have such a huge upside makes this a strength. While they aren’t the same kinds of talents, it’s also not hard to envision the Avs potentially getting high-impact players out of guys like Ranta or Foudy. They each have elite tools and fit Colorado’s style perfectly but both possess serious hockey IQ questions. If they put it all together, they could each crash the top of Colorado’s lineup and force their way in.

While there’s a lot that has to go right, the same is true of Barron. His combination of size and skating makes him intriguing right away but his hockey IQ and puck-moving ability are good enough that you could absolutely dream on Barron being a guy who scores 40 points in the NHL while playing high-defense.

That’s obviously the best-case scenario but the majority of years the Avalanche system hasn’t even had those types of talents filtered throughout.

Ready-made replacements

Colorado’s roster is about to get expensive. A lot more expensive. When that happens, the habit they’ve developed of spending money on depth players is going to have to be something that falls by the wayside.

They’re going to be forced to find more cost-efficient options at the bottom of their roster and there’s nothing more cost-efficient than ELCs. The Avs moving on from Matt Nieto this offseason is just the beginning of that as a combination of Tyson Jost, Logan O’Connor and Martin Kaut will replace that role.

None of those players make a million dollars and that’s where the Avs are set up nicely in the next several years. Just next year, they could have as many as 10 of these players turning pro at the same time. Realistically, that number should be more in the seven range but the possibility is there.

Some of them will be making the jump from juniors to the AHL and won’t push right away for the NHL. Others like Kovalenko and Newhook should push immediately for NHL ice time. As more veteran contracts expire next year (Saad, Calvert, Bellemare), the Avs are in a position to replace all of those players internally if they wish.

That’s a plum position to be in as they try to maximize their competitive window, especially in a world where the salary cap is likely to remain stagnant for at least three years.

Weaknesses

Star Talent

In case you’re tempted to scroll up, yes, this was also listed as a strength. The reality is that beyond Byram and Newhook, it’s a longshot that any of the players on this list become high-impact NHL players.

Timmins and Kaut are right on the edge of being full-time NHL players (with Bowers not far behind) but they are probably more of high-end complementary players than true core pieces down the road. They’ll be valuable NHL players and you need those guys to win Stanley Cups but they aren’t the kinds of guys that you think are going to be in your lineup for a decade.

While you can dream on guys like Ranta or Foudy or even Beaucage becoming Burakovsky-level players for you, the Avalanche has shown an inability as an organization to develop that player in-house. It’s why they’ve had to shore up their forward depth over the last two offseasons by importing Burakovsky, Kadri and Saad and even role players like Donskoi, Nichushkin, Bellemare and Calvert.

They have to find a way to get NHL players from this group. There’s plenty of talent here. This isn’t like trying to squeeze water from a rock. They have legit players to work with, even if they aren’t likely to be high-end players.

Left Wing/Defense

Look at that list! Even if you move a few guys over who do occasionally play the left (Ranta especially), it’s not a very encouraging list. Consider the Avs have had to import Calvert, Nichushkin and Saad all in the last year to shore up that position.

Hell, even Donskoi and Burakovsky had to slide to the left last season to cover as injuries mounted. The irony here is that Colorado has been sorely lacking right-handed shots for certain situations in recent years and now their projected top six has just MacKinnon as the lone right-shot forward.

Yet, it’s the left side that’s lacking.

On defense, it’s Byram and then a whole lot of hopes and dreams. The Avs might be one of the few systems where the right side is well-stocked and without much question. Of course, at the NHL level, the Avalanche remains fine as Byram has to compete with fellow lefties Ian Cole, Ryan Graves and Sam Girard along with newcomer Devon Toews.

The left side of the defense won’t need replenishing right away as the youth on that side means there’s no rush to resolve the issue.

Size/Physicality

I know that for some of you, this is immediately going to stick out as a problem. The Avs get bullied too easily and get pushed around and can’t take a punch and I get it.

The reality is that Colorado isn’t interested in building a team of heavy players. They want fleet-footed and skilled first and foremost and they’ll sprinkle in some physicality along the way.

The most physical of these players is Kovalenko with Stienburg following closely at forward and Anderson and Helleson the only real bangers on the back end. Stienburg and Anderson both face long odds to make the NHL as their physicality is arguably their biggest selling point with any other skills trailing pretty significantly.

Kovalenko and Helleson have plenty of other skills to get them into the NHL but neither will be high-end players and their physicality will be a must if they are to have success. The rest of the group just isn’t built like that.

Kaut is a strong player who uses his size effectively but you’d never describe him as an overly physical player. Colorado has trended heavily towards the Kaut types as they look for players who can be effective with their size as part of their all-around game but aren’t loading up on any hit-first types who also happen to be able to play.

If you’re looking for a Tom Wilson or Zack Kassian or Ryan Reaves type, this is simply the wrong organization.

Final Thoughts

This is a deep and talented system. It may not be high on lists around the league anymore as graduations will continue to erode the high-end talents but the great part of graduation is those guys go to the NHL club.

With superstar talent in place at the NHL level, the Avs are transitioning into using their farm system more for filling in the gaps on the cheap and exploiting the league’s ELC system.

They are well-positioned to do just that as long as the development side of the organization holds up its end of the bargain.