Avalanche claims Marko Dano from Jets

The Colorado Avalanche were at it again this morning as they plucked forward Marko Dano off the waiver wire, finally bringing their roster up to the 23-player limit. Dano was previously with the Winnipeg Jets but has appeared in just 23 games since the start of the 2017-18 season.

The 23-year-old Slovakian forward was a first-round draft pick (27th overall) of the Columbus Blue Jackets back in 2013. He was involved in multiple high-profile trades (Brandon Saad to Columbus, Andrew Ladd to Chicago) as a top prospect but never really found his way into a team’s lineup on a consistent basis.

Given the depth of the forward corps in Winnipeg, Dano was a man on the outside looking in and will get a fresh start in Denver on a team still searching for quality answers in their bottom six.

The Avalanche have started off with a respectable 3-1-1 start but are still just a bit too top heavy and are looking for players who can help contribute in their bottom six. While J.T. Compher and Matt Calvert have formed a strong and productive two-thirds of a line, the third player has shifted between Sheldon Dries and Vladislav Kamenev and neither player has accomplished much in limited ice time.

The other issue at hand for Colorado is the reliance on similarly limited forwards Matt Nieto and Gabriel Bourque. While Nieto is once again paired with Carl Soderberg after a successful run last year, the results to begin this season are far from what the coaching staff was hoping to get from this group. They have been crushed defensively and while Soderberg has been able to produce offense, most of it has come away from those two as they are both low-ceiling offensive players.

Nieto enjoyed a 15-goal season last year but was unlikely to repeat that total for a number of reasons (shooting percentage regression and empty-net goals being primary factors). Bourque has spent the last couple of years as an AHL-NHL “tweener” and has not been given a consistent role until the end of last year when the Avalanche didn’t really have better options. So far this season it appears ahead coach Jared Bednar has been much more comfortable with Bourque but there’s no way he isn’t seeing what the rest of us are in that line being grossly overmatched.

The lines were switched up a bit at practice yesterday so it’s clear the coaches are looking to try a new approach and that’s where Dano can come in and contribute. He’s a strong skater and at 6’0″, 210 pounds he’s a thickly-built bull in a china shop when he cruises through the neutral zone. He’s a defensively responsible player who does a good job of taking care of his own zone but he’s never been able to find himself on the right side of consistent offense. He has played both center and wing in his time in the NHL so the Avalanche will have flexibility with where he plays.

Dano has produced 45 points (19g, 26a) in 130 NHL games played and the bulk of those points came in a 35-game stint in 2014-15 when he scored 21 points. To further show he’s never been a consistent opportunity in the NHL, he’s never played more than 38 games in a single season and he was a healthy scratch for 59 (!) games last season.

To show some of the impacts Dano has had on the ice in his career, here’s a heat map of shots from the great Micah Blake McCurdy.

Dano is just weeks into a one-year, one-way contract he signed with the Jets over the summer. He’s making $800K this year and will be a restricted free agent next summer. He has two years of RFA status remaining and will be arbitration eligible. He is the 48th contract on the books (50 is the max) and should he stay with the Avalanche for the duration of the season will be the 25th player whose contract ends next summer.

The Dano claim continues a theme for the Avalanche as they now have used waivers to claim five members of the organization (Patrik Nemeth, Mark Barberio, Matt Nieto, Mark Alt) in the past three years.