Colorado Avalanche Mailbag: trade Guenin? Recall Redmond? Dark magic? Will anything help?

Tuesday means it’s time for another round of Avalanche Mailbag! At least one question was definitely still feeling the Halloween spirit this week, which was a much-appreciated touch of levity during a stretch of time when it’s been pretty tough to be an Avalanche fan.

Questions can be directed to us via Twitter (@BSNAvalanche, hashtag #BSNMailbag) or email (BSNAvalanche@gmail.com) if you’d like to join in for next week’s edition. The more the merrier!

You have the choice to trade either Brad Stuart or Nate Guenin. Which one do you trade and why? – @malihoo29

I’m going to approach this question under the assumption that we are living in an alternate universe where both players have managed to court some interest from another NHL team. Nate Guenin gets a lot of flak from Avalanche fans, much in the style Matt Hunwick used to, and it isn’t always deserved. The same can be said for Stuart. But when it comes to who I personally would trade, there’s no question about it.

Nate Guenin costs the Avalanche $800,000 per year and is an unrestricted free agent at the end of this season.

Brad Stuart costs the Avalanche $3.6 million through 2018.

Considering what Stuart brings to the table, that contract is an albatross. I’d trade him the second someone looked like they’d fall for it.

Should the Avalanche call up Zach Redmond? He’s having a great start in San Antonio and [the team’s] bottom pair D are awful. – @PatB_lund9

The Avalanche are having issues at just about every roster point right now. The bottom pair defense is no exception, but I am not sure they’re the sort of problems calling up Redmond would solve.

Management went out of their way to acquire Brandon Gormley, so I’d expect him to see more ice time before anyone from San Antonio would be called up. He seems to be the extra guy at the moment, provided everyone on the blue line is healthy.

Contract-wise, it made more sense to send Redmond to San Antonio than a couple other candidates and exposing him to waivers was less of a risk than doing so with Gormley. As much of a Zach Redmond cheerleader as I am, it’s understandable why he started the year with the Rampage. I imagine we’ll see him first thing if and when an injury occurs, though.

Last year, myself and a number of other Avalanche writers expressed some frustration at the team’s unwillingness to utilize Redmond given his slight edge on puck possession but even the Avalanche’s best defenders in that area have been struggling recently, so I can’t imagine adding Redmond to the lineup would improve that much either.

Why do you think the Avs are calling up Ben Street? – Glenn, non-twitter-user

There has been some speculation that someone may have been injured in the recent Carolina Hurricanes game, though I stress that’s just speculation in social media. There was a moment near the end of that game on the face-off when John Mitchell appeared to struggle briefly, but again, that’s spitballing.

It doesn’t make much sense for the Avalanche to call up San Antonio’s current leading scorer (3G/9A in six games so far) if he isn’t going to play, so I don’t think they’ve recalled him just to fill that last roster spot. It’s possible he’ll be swapping out with Dennis Everberg or Mikhail Grigorenko, neither of which have seen huge amounts of ice time. The team is struggling to find chemistry and cohesion right now, so Street could be a “will it blend?” attempt.

I liked what I saw of Street last year, especially considering it was later revealed that he was playing injured. He’ll bring energy to the bottom six, similar to the type of spark we saw from Jack Skille at training camp. Will his presence be enough to make a sizeable impact? Doubtful.

What dark ritual do the Avs do to win games and did they forget to do it before the season? – @FrostyBear21

Asmodeus, King of Demons, told Solomon: “So ask me not many things; for thy kingdom also after a little time is to be disrupted, and thy glory is but for a season.” Fortunately, hockey only lasts for one season at a time too.

I did some research for this question, because my thought process led me in a certain direction. What dark ritual do the Avs do to win games? Who knows. But what could help them win games? I thought maybe a good luck spell, but we all know a high PDO wouldn’t fix any long-term problems. Then I thought maybe they could hex their enemies, but they play a different team every night so that would be time consuming.

Summoning a demon, though? That could work. A demon could likely handle a lot of ice time, plus it would be immune to most injuries a mortal hockey player could throw at it. So I spent some time with my old pal Google and stumbled across a handy step-by-step guide.

The correct methods for summoning a Demon:

1. Know the Demon you intend to summon. This website lists the attributes and available knowledge about different Demons. All of the Goetic Demons are human friendly, as we know from experience.
2. It is important to have a specific purpose; know exactly *why* you are summoning a particular Demon.
3. When we ask assistance from a Demon, it is only proper to offer something in return. Be prepared to give something in return. This is something both you and the Demon should agree upon. Remember, the Elder Gods value one’s word, honesty, integrity and one’s honor as the utmost importance. NEVER agree to anything you know you cannot follow through on. Giving something often involves fighting against the enemy in some way.

This raised a lot more questions, namely how we know all the Goetic Demons are friendly, but at least we’re on the right path here. It looks to me like the Avalanche just have to choose a suitable payment for some underworldly assistance. It’s possible the team has already made a secret sacrifice that we don’t know about.

Given how thorough an NHL team must be when preparing for a season, I find it unlikely that Sakic and Roy simply forgot the all-important Training Camp Dark Summoning Ritual. But there is a chance something went horribly wrong. If books and movies have taught me anything, this is a risk inherent to the act of summoning Demons. I hope the team has the proper insurance.

Our thanks to those of you who submitted questions! We’ll have a couple open questions for all staff next Mailbag, so if you’ve got a question you want the whole BSN Avs team to have a crack at, tweet it with #AvsMailbag or email BSNAvalanche@gmail.com!