Dater’s best-of Avalanche regular-season awards

Let’s do something quick and fun. A best-of from the regular season that just finished on Saturday. It’s getting late and I’ve got a super early flight tomorrow morning, so I’m not going to be much of a Rodin sculpture here (google it kids). These are my own personal choices.

Let’s go:

MOST PERSONALLY MEMORABLE MOMENT COVERING THE SEASON: I drove from Denver to St. Paul and back to cover the last Avs-Wild game a few weeks ago. A little more than 900 miles one way. All through Nebraska and all through Iowa to get there. It helped me clear my head, let me see a couple of states I’d never really been through before, let me see what was one of the best performances of the season by the team and let me know that I’ll never, ever do that long of a drive again. So many gas stations I stopped at, so many trucks I passed, so much wide-open space, mile after mile after mile. So many times, I passed truckers thinking, “They do this kind of a drive day after day after day.” My hat is off to them. I couldn’t do it.

MOST SURPRISING SEASON BY A PLAYER: I gotta go with Alexander Kerfoot. I remember the first time I saw him, at the Rookie Showcase in San Jose before the start of the preseason. I thought, “This guy looks too small.”  Wrong. He scored 19 goals as a rookie and took every hit that came his way – and there were many – and never whined once.

BEST WIN: No question, it was that Wild game I drove to in St. Paul. You should have heard the crowd at the end of that one at Xcel Energy Center. Crickets.

MOST UNEXPECTED WIN: The Avs went into Las Vegas and lost 7-0 to the Golden Knights early on. They played a Chicago Blackhawks team waiting for them in Denver the next night. I wasn’t very hopeful of an Avs win, just based on recent history. But they blew out the ‘Hawks. It was that game where I started to think maybe this team could hang in there this season.

BEST COMEBACK SEASON: Tough one here, as a lot of guys had big bounce-back seasons after the train wreck of 2016-17. But I’ll go with Carl Soderberg. He went from 14 points in 80 games to 37 points in 77 games, from a minus-26 to even. People forget too: he was a healthy scratch on opening night. He put it behind him and had a solid year.

SECOND-MOST PERSONALLY MEMORABLE MOMENT OF THE SEASON: When the Avs played in Florida, I stayed in an Airbnb for the first time ever. And let’s just say it didn’t work out. I almost called 911, but got a rescue from a great Avs fan from a nearby town, and got fully recompensated by Airbnb. The gist of everything: I think I stayed in a drug house. I stayed in some nice Airbnbs after that, but I haven’t given up my Marriott card either.

Here is one of those good ones. I had this whole condo in Vancouver to myself for two days, at $55 a night. A total steal. I still miss that massage chair.

BEST DRESSER: I wouldn’t have thought anyone could give Gabe Landeskog a run for his fashion money, but Nikita Zadorov might have overtaken him. Crisp, well-tailored suits on the big Russian at all times.

BEST GOAL: That overtime goal by Nathan MacKinnon in Detroit early on, the one Jimmy Howard probably never actually saw.

BEST CLUTCH PERFORMANCE: We just saw it on Saturday, that three-point, 10-hit, 73-percent faceoff game from Landeskog over St. Louis.

BEST SAVE: It happened in Game 2, in New Jersey, by Jonathan Bernier on Damon Severson. The Avs lost, but what a save:

BEST PICTURE OF PETER FORSBERG, ALEX TANGUAY AND MILAN HEJDUK IN ONE PLACE:

On Hejduk’s jersey retirement night. Pretty sure Foppa was telling me to hurry up and take the pic.

BEST TRADE:

Well, duh. Nov. 5 in Brooklyn. Crazy night. You had to be there. Oh, yeah, I was. Here’s that video I took of Dutchy on his way out of the Barclay’s Center:

BEST LOCKER-ROOM MOMENT:

Landeskog and Mikko Rantanen, who sit right next to each other in the Avs’ room at the Pepsi Center, giving each other some kind of snap-and-point hand signal to each other aftre that win over the Blues the other day. Happiest I’ve ever seen Landy in an Avs uniform.

It was a fun regular season to cover. On to Nashville…