Colorado Avalanche Mailbag: Who are the real Avs?

Today we debut our weekly BSN Avalanche Mailbag! We asked if Avalanche fans had questions and we received a handful of good ones. Questions were either sent in to our Twitter (@BSNAvalanche) or email (BSNAvalanche@gmail.com) and pulled some of our favorites to be answered. Thank you to everyone who submitted questions. Don’t be a stranger in future iterations of the Mailbag. Let’s get to it!

Which Avs team do we see more this year: the one that’s up early and struggles or the one that puts teams away? –@Caswscot13

The Avalanche have acquired a handful of veterans over the last couple summers and lauded each of them for their leadership qualities. Parts of leading such a young core (consider the majority of the Avs best players are still in their early 20s) include teaching a team how to win. It’s a painful process as the opening night collapse to Minnesota proved but ultimately one that every team experiences as they mature into a team that wishes to contend for more than just a playoff spot.

The Avalanche are still very much a work in progress and I think we’re going to see them experience more of the opening night variety type of games than the follow up against Dallas. As they struggle to improve their overall possession game, it’s going to be a real fight for them to close teams out against teams with better defenses than what the Stars put forward.

Do you see Roy staying with the Guenin/Holden 3rd D pair or go back to original pairings? –@C_DUB_85

I think Roy wanted to run the Beauchemin, Johnson, Zadorov, Barrie top four group from the start but was trying to ease Zadorov into the role. I think we’ll still see some shuffling around before it ultimately works itself out but as long as those four guys consistently play the best, I believe Roy will continue to stick with them. His matching of those four against Dallas’ top two lines played a big role in turning that game around and the third pairing is going to be a rotation of the remaining four defensemen seeing game time depending on performance.

Given Nick Holden’s sharp decrease in ice time from game one to game two (team-leading 22:34 to 15:03), I’d say he is the primary culprit for removal from the lineup right now.

When does Grigorenko get a shot? –@MCraiger58

A question we received a couple of times, I’d say give Mikhail Grigorenko some time, even if he makes his debut this week. The Avalanche forwards are playing pretty well overall and he might be best served spending a couple of weeks practicing with the team and getting comfortable under Roy’s tutelage again before throwing back into the NHL fire. That said, given Roy’s reticence to play Borna Rendulic and Mikko Rantanen more than a handful of minutes, you can’t help but imagine if one or both don’t make some leaps soon that Grigorenko will be sliding into the lineup sooner than later.

Is it early season jitters/lack of chemistry or the #Avs system that makes them seem wild, panicked, sloppy and dysfunctional? –@TrentManchester

I’m chalking up some of their struggles to a lack of chemistry. The lineup iced in games one and two include six players new to the organization, some of whom are very young. It takes time for a team with so many moving pieces to find an identity and sort out the roles each of them will play over the course of a season. It’s another season of growing pains so don’t expect instant cohesion but the third period of the Stars game certainly showed what the Avalanche could become if they find a rhythm as a group.

1- Do you see a trade partner that would accept Brad Stuart’s contract and that Stuart would accept going to? (I think Stuart has to submit 7 teams)
2- You are Patrick Roy. Do you play Rantanen with Duchene, send him to AHL, or leave him where he is now?
3- How much do you think Tanguay gets offered from the Avs this offseason?
4- You are trapped on an island with Guenin, Holden, and Stuart.  Who do you eat for sustenance, who do you escape the island with and who do you leave behind?

Thanks,
Jeremy

Thanks for the support and the bevy of questions, Jeremy! Let’s tackle these in order….

1. Realistically, I don’t see Brad Stuart going anywhere. I know Avs fans are eager to move on from a guy whose contract stands out as an albatross on an otherwise well-managed salary cap sheet but given his age, very limited role, and salary commitments it just doesn’t strike me as realistic to see the Avs finding a trade partner for him. That said, NHL GMs are notoriously silly at times (see: Ben Lovejoy for Simon Despres trade last year) so I won’t rule anything out. Just don’t expect anything here.

2. I would pair Iginla with Landeskog and MacKinnon, slotting Rantanen with Comeau and Duchene and putting Tanguay with Soderberg. Rantanen was excellent on the right side in the preseason and has been hesitant and unsure of himself on the left side in the first two games of the season. If I’m Roy, I’m moving Rantanen back to his natural right side and seeing what value he can provide before he reaches the nine game mark. It’s imperative the Avalanche figure out if they believe Rantanen can help them all season or if he’s best served playing heavy minutes for San Antonio in the American Hockey League.

3. My expectation with Tanguay is the team and player approach the situation much in the same way Milan Hejduk did in the twilight of his career. I think they’ll settle right in the $3 million annual average value price point and go one year at a time until Tanguay decides to hang up the skates for good.

4. This is a fun question! I’d eat Holden because he’s the best combination of height, weight, and age, leave behind Stuart because he’s older and not so useful, and take Guenin with me because he would point the way towards imminent danger, allowing me to avoid it.

That’s it for all the questions this week! Check back for next week’s Mailbag when we tackle more of your questions!