Colorado Avalanche Mailbag: On Tyson Barrie, Rantanen's fate, and more

It’s time for round two of the Avalanche Mailbag! You gals and guys didn’t pull any punches with your questions this week, boy howdy. But that’s okay, we had a great time with them! Keep ’em coming–tweet us with #AvsMailbag or email questions to BSNAvalanche@gmail.com and we’ll answer as many as we can!

Are the Avs’ poor “enhanced” stats attributed more the to skill of the players or the Avs’ systems? – @borganmurrows

Casey: Woof, a doozie of a first question.

This question to me is unanswerable when phrased as a mere either-or. The only way to find out a definitive answer either way would be to replace the coach or replace the entire roster. The closest we can get to examining whether or not Patrick Roy’s system has had a negative or positive affect on possession metrics would be an in-depth analysis of those metrics for a period prior to and then after Roy’s systems were implemented.

While I don’t have charts on hand, I do recall Colorado was a terrible possession team long before Patrick Roy was hired. In 2009-10 and 2010-11 for example, the Avs were a bottom-five possession team in even strength CF%. Joakim Lindstrom and Brandon Yip were among the worst possession players in the NHL during their stint in an Avs uniform (although Lindstrom’s sample size is pretty small).

However, even strength CF% does not tell the story on its own. And of course, the roster has changed in the past five years.

As someone who’s not typically an analytics writer, the best I can personally answer is this: there are poor possession players and then there are players who are poor possession players when playing certain systems or when playing with certain linemates. I think it’s a rare scenario that a player’s lack of puck possession ability can be solely boiled down to “skill.”

So in that instance, I think it’s safe to lay some blame at the foot of Roy’s system because it has often given high TOI to players who don’t excel at puck possession. He’s also scratched players with higher possession numbers in favor of those without, such as Zach Redmond’s long stint on the bench last year when Nate Guenin stayed in the lineup.

In the end though, the inverse of this question is just as hard to quantify: are the Blackhawks a great possession team because they play a PPS-style game or does their PPS find success because they have elite-level two-way talents like Jonathan Toews and Marian Hossa setting things up?

Moe asks: Why doesn’t Tyson Barrie get more love in the mainstream media for being the best d-man on the Avs by a decent margin?

AJ: I think it’s pretty simple. When you consider he doesn’t play the toughest minutes, gets heavy offensive zone starts, and so much of his value is tied up into his offensive production, it becomes clear that the MSM doesn’t give Barrie attention for being Colorado’s best defenseman because he isn’t.

Look at what has happened to him at the start of this season. His offense hasn’t been there early on and he’s looked like a trainwreck. Unfortunately, his defensive play this season is down a little bit from previous years but honestly not very much. He looks awful in both ends of the ice right now but the big change has been that his offense has mostly disappeared so far. He’s never been a good (or bad) defender, merely an average one.

It’s still early and of course I believe Barrie will bounce back because guys have a bad stretch of four games all the time but his struggles this season have really illuminated the limitations that have always existed in his game.

Andi: Another thing to consider is that from the mainstream point of view, the Colorado Avalanche are a small market, non-Canadian, Western Conference team that hasn’t done much but accumulate high draft picks, deny advanced statistics, and fluke their way into a couple non-memorable playoff series in the past decade.

Their defense has been among the worst in the league for most of that time, and Tyson Barrie, while a decent offensive producer, hasn’t done much to change that fact on an individual level. Sure, he’s spent most of his minutes paired with Nate Guenin, and sure, he’s still been a bright spot on a bleak area of the team, but if you want the mainstream media to start laying the love on Barrie, the Avs need to start sustainably winning. Otherwise, there is very little reason for the media to understand the small nuances of a club that very few outside of the Colorado fanbase really care to hear all that much about.

Cheryl: He’s young and hasn’t had very many years of success under his belt. Had he been a top-10 draft pick, he’d probably be getting more ink (er, pixels?), but since he was not in the limelight for the draft, it’s going to take some time of repeated success to get more attention. He may never get it. Look at John-Michael Liles. He put up 8 seasons of similar success to Barrie’s previous two, and not only was he never lauded by MSM, he wasn’t even given much respect by his team’s own fans.

J.D.: First, I’m not sure I completely agree with the premise of the question. While I think Tyson Barrie brings a lot to the Avalanche’s defensive corps, Erik Johnson has been a workhorse for them (consider his elevated play last year) and Beauchemin has been a great addition so far, bringing the veteran experience and leadership the team wanted. One could make an argument those two supersede Barrie on defense this year. So I agree with AJ and Andi on the not sure he is the best d-man aspect yet.

Having said that, I do think Tyson Barrie is a good young defenseman. However, to gain mainstream media attention, one of two things has to happen. Primarily, the Avs have to prove themselves by winning games. Nothing grabs attention like success. Once they start winning games, more media will be following them and they will witness the excitement Barrie’s play generates. Second, Barrie needs to score goals. Goals tend to get more media coverage than good defensive play. Quality defensive shifts are not as exciting to capture in ten second film clips, unless there is a nasty hit, which is not the kind of notoriety Barrie or the Avs, desire.  Barrie will get noticed as the Avs improve. For now, enjoy knowing something the rest of the world does not. You have the rare opportunity of watching a really exciting player develop into a future Hall of Famer. You can tell everyone “I told you so” later.

Casey: Tyson Barrie doesn’t get media attention because they have the cameras focused at face-level for Nikita Zadorov, so Barrie just skates under them.

In all seriousness, I think Barrie flies under the radar for a number of reasons: the media narrative is that the Colorado Avalanche’s defense is bad, bad, bad. Nobody wants to talk about the best defenders on a team known across the NHL for how bad their defense is. Cheryl’s example of John-Michael Liles is spot on. Liles was an exemplary defender for the Avs in the role the team needed him to play. He wasn’t Rob Blake, but he got the job done and did it well.

The little things that Barrie does right like neutral zone transitions are difficult to quantify and don’t always show up to the eye test, so it’s easy to see why he slips under the radar. And like AJ said above, when he’s not on his A-game, it can be painfully obvious that he’s still learning.

Mikko [Rantanen] is heading to the AHL, right? Why or why not? – @kennethkorri

Cheryl: He is? Funny, I haven’t heard Roy say that. Moreover, I don’t know why he’d need to. We are less than two weeks into the season. Demoting him now will negatively affect his confidence, undermining his development. He gets better coaching where he is—not to mention, higher quality linemates—which, in the end, will be more beneficial to him. Have patience. People lamented Duchene’s and MacKinnon’s starts in the NHL, too. They turned out okay, I think.

J.D.: I sure hope not! Rantenen’s hustle in front of the opposing team’s net is one of the reasons I have great hope for the future of the Avs. He hustles, he is physical, and he battles for the puck. Mikko earned his spot on the team and I don’t see anyone stepping up to challenge his role. He is a rookie in the NHL so expect him to continue to make mistakes. But he appears to be a quick learner and has already improved in the few games already played. I believe it is important to allow the team to gel, and that works best by having as many of the key pieces playing together as possible. Rantanen, in my opinion, is a key piece and he can play with the big boys.

Andi: As long as Rantanen’s play is good enough for the top six and no one else steps up to steal his job, I think it’s worthwhile keeping him on the team, even at his young age. If his play starts to slip and he tumbles down the depth chart, then it’s probably best to send him to San Antonio for big minutes and bring up Everberg to fill that bottom six role. Luckily, it’s not a decision the team needs to be in any rush to make, and the experience of playing in the big leagues is good for him. I expect the team to just play it by ear as the year goes on.

Casey: I was originally a strident proponent of sending Rantanen to the AHL for both training purposes and to avoid burning a year off his ELC. The question to me was whether Rantanen with three years’ NHL experience was a better overall move than Rantanen with two years’ NHL experience and one cheap year remaining in 2018.

Mikhail Grigorenko comes to mind as a timely example of why chucking a talented prospect into the NHL too early may not always work out. The Sabres’ awkward handling of Grigorenko is generally accepted as having contributed to issues with his development as a player.

Rantanen has impressed me a great deal–enough for me rce=direct&utm_medium%–but I am still ever so slightly on the side that unless he can make a sustained, noticeable impact, it might be best for him to have some time in the minors.

Fortunately, the team doesn’t have to make that call yet.

Thanks again to everyone who sent through questions. We’re already starting a list for next week’s Mailbag, so get it while it’s hot! We can’t wait to hear from you.