Colorado Avalanche Mailbag: new defensive pairs, roster adjustments, and more

Good morning, Avs fans! Another week has come and gone, and with it comes new topics of discussion. After tenuously clinging to a wild card spot for a while, the team has fallen outside the playoff bubble by a margin that may prove insurmountable. Despite this change in climate, most of the questions I received this week weren’t of the “who should we fire?” variety, which was nice.

Thanks to everybody who submitted questions! We’ll kick things off with a discussion of the new defensive pairings the team debuted after calling up Nikita Zadorov.

What do you think of the Avalanche’s new defensive pairings? – @mcgucks91

When the team announced their shake up on defense prior to the game against Nashville, many fans were scratching their heads. I was cautiously optimistic. The current defensive pairs more or less lived up to my expectations, although there was one surprise, as I detail below.

Bigras/Johnson: The word that comes to mind most when reviewing Chris Bigras‘ performance on the Avalanche roster so far is mature. There are moments he still gets caught off-guard and he still makes the occasional mistake, but by and large he plays a game much more mature than his age suggests. I think given a bit more time together, Erik Johnson could be a great partner for Bigras. Once Johnson is a bit more comfortable, he’ll get back to his old tricks. He seems to be playing things a little conservatively in case Bigras gets caught out, but I imagine that will taper off.

Zadorov/Beauchemin: Nikita Zadorov and Francois Beauchemin are a match made in heaven right now. Zadorov brought all his usual assets to the table, but Beauchemin was a very active player coach with him. This was valuable, as one issue the coaching staff has brought up about Zadorov in the past was his decision making. With Beauch literally giving him marching orders, Zadorov looked great and rarely faltered.

Holden/Barrie: My biggest surprise of the night was just how awkward Nick Holden looked at times. Maybe he was just having an off night, but with Bigras and Zadorov now on the NHL roster, Holden’s shortcomings were evident. His decision making regarding whether to dump/clear the puck or skate it out continues to baffle me. Putting him next to Tyson Barrie deepened and reinforced this awkwardness, even when Barrie himself wasn’t having the best night.

In conclusion, despite some rough moments from Holden, I felt the new defensive pairs were a definite improvement. Beauchemin’s work with Zadorov is yet another reason why he’s become a valuable asset on this Avalanche team.

If you could only keep one of Shawn Matthias or Mikkel Boedker due to the salary cap, which would you choose and why? – Multiple

This, like my prior answer regarding keeping Boedker in the line-up, depends on what Boedker’s contract demands are. In some fantasy world where they cost the same, I prefer Boedker’s skillset more. But we don’t live in that fantasy world. If it’s true that Boedker is seeking in excess of five million dollars per year, give me Shawn Matthias.

I love what Matthias brings to the Avs. He’s obvious on the penalty kill, he adds much-needed skill to the bottom six, and he’s an upgrade on just about every guy the Avs have had routinely playing his position in the last couple years.

If it came down to losing Matthias or Boedker, I’d keep Matthias for both what he brings to the team and the extra wiggle room he’d give them when negotiating with Barrie, MacKinnon, and others needing contract extensions.

What does a legitimate contender version of the Avs look like now compared to where they’re currently at? – @RetepAdam

I love this question! There’s a couple different ways to read it, although for brevity’s sake, I’m going to pick just one. The unused option would be a play-by-play of how to build said team down to the financial nitty-gritties, but as a writer who tends to prefer focusing on stuff grounded in reality, spending that much time and effort on a pie in the sky scenario seems a bit silly.

In my opinion, the #1 thing holding the Avalanche back is still their defensive issues. They’ve made moves that have sincerely bolstered the third and fourth lines to the point of where they aren’t the goal-bleeding possession nightmares they were in previous seasons. They’ve also made adjustments to the defense, true, and it’s trending in the right direction.

In my opinion it’s still necessary for the team to acquire a top four left-side defenseman, not solely because of the addition of said player, but because it means fewer minutes for everybody worse. The team’s ridden Beauchemin too hard, and allowing him to step down to the third pairing and into a mentor role would be huge. Ideally, they’d get two.

Additionally, in my ideal build, a big-bodied winger (like Alexander Radulov, who the team is purportedly courting as his KHL contract winds down) would take over from Jarome Iginla on Matt Duchene‘s wing once Iginla’s contract winds down.

Bearing in mind that Mikko Rantanen will likely be ready for the NHL sooner rather than later, there really isn’t much more in my shopping cart when it comes to forwards.

I suppose if I’m making stipulations, I can also say I’d like a healthy groin for Semyon Varlamov, which makes it sound like I’m ordering him the most questionable takeout food ever.

Slowly but surely the 2015-16 NHL regular season is winding down. From then, all eyes will turn to the playoffs, then to the draft, and I’m sure the variety of mailbag questions we get will be pretty different by then! So if you have a question you want to sneak in under the wire, be sure to tweet it with the hashtag #BSNMailbag. Tweets can be directed toward @CaseyDownUnder or @BSNAvalanche, or both if you’re super enthusiastic.

Thanks for reading and I look forward to catching up again next week!