Joe Sakic bets big on this Avalanche team

Go back one week in time when the Avs had lost four of their last six games but were coming off a 3-0 shutout of the Calgary Flames, the west’s other top team and primary contender for supremacy in the upcoming Stanley Cup Playoffs.

It was a good game from the Avs, but the usual pockmarks were still there. By that point, it had become very clear that while absolutely stacked at the top of the roster, there was plenty of room for Colorado to improve their roster by filling out some of the depth that had been lost in the last year thanks to the expansion draft and salary cap-related attrition.

With the deadline just one week away, Colorado’s clear areas to upgrade were:

• Another top-four defenseman to help with the uncertainty of Sam Girard and Bowen Byram’s injuries (and, if we’re honest, Girard’s uneven play this season)
• Help for the bottom-six forward group
• Help in faceoffs
• Physicality and grit in general
• Right-handed forward capable of taking key faceoffs

After the trade deadline passed this afternoon and the dust had settled, Colorado had completed four trades throughout the week to improve the club. From the list above, the only area that wasn’t addressed was the last one.

The Avalanche haul brought in ended up being:

• Josh Manson
• Nico Sturm
• Artturi Lehkonen
• Andrew Cogliano

The prices paid were significant as the assets sent out of the organization is:

• Tyson Jost
• Justin Barron
• Drew Helleson
• 2023 2nd round pick
• 2024 2nd round pick
• 2024 5th round pick

Jost is a proven NHL commodity and both Barron and Helleson are defense prospects who are near NHL-ready and both coveted right-handed shots with good size. The picks traded means Colorado won’t have a 2nd round pick of their own again until 2025.

There was plenty of talk about Colorado going “all-in” at the deadline and this is pretty close to it. Rarely do you see teams with leads as large as Colorado’s in both their division and conference feel the need to add four new players to the mix.

They had plenty of reason to sit tight and chose to continue an aggressive approach to shoring up weaknesses.

Now, the Avs did not ultimately land Claude Giroux, who was this year’s “big fish” at the deadline but after Giroux informed Flyers brass his preferred destination was the Florida Panthers, it effectively ended Colorado’s pursuit of the player.

After Giroux, I’m not sure there was a big fish to be had at the deadline as teams like Dallas and Vancouver chose to hang on to big pieces that could have fetched hefty returns.

That put Colorado in the market to target specific solutions for their needs and boy did they ever do that. You can see my thoughts already on the Manson and Sturm trades so I won’t rehash those additions specifically.

I’ll start with Lehkonen since he’s the bigger piece here.

Who is Artturi Lehkonen?

Not a big name across the league, Lehkonen is another classic analytics darling and has drawn many comparisons to current Av Valeri Nichushkin.

At 26-years-old and on an expiring contract, Lehkonen has predictably had what should be a career year for him when it’s all said and done with 29 points (13G, 16A) in 58 games for the Montreal Canadiens. Now, Lehkonen is set to be a restricted free agent at the end of the year, so Colorado will have an excellent shot at keeping him not just for next year but potentially several years on a new contract.

Before that happens, however, let’s get into why Colorado targeted Lehkonen specifically.

Despite scoring 18 goals in his rookie year back in 2016-17, Lehkonen has never been able to reach that goal-scoring level again and his finishing ability is one of the areas of his game that has kept him from soaring to even greater heights.

Lehkonen has shot over 10% just twice in his career: That rookie season and this year. That makes it a small concern that Colorado is paying an expensive price (Barron and the 2024 2nd) for a player in the middle of his best year, which he may struggle to repeat.

That’s a fair concern, but he’s only shooting 11.8%, which is nowhere near the kind of problematic shooting percentage that sticks out as a significant red flag. It’s merely just something I’m pointing out as a limitation of the player to this point in his career and something to watch moving forward.

While not a scintillating playmaker either with a career-high of 20 assists in a season, it’s fair to say Lehkonen’s offensive tools are more limited than that of a Nichushkin, making it more likely he caps out on Colorado’s third line instead of following a similar path of ascent as Nichushkin, who has comfortably filled in on Colorado’s top line with Gabe Landeskog out due to injury.

It would be unfair to hold Lehkonen to that kind of level, so let’s temper those expectations right away. What Lehkonen does do well, however, is…well, basically everything else.

While not gifted with tremendous size at 6’0″, 176 pounds, he makes the most of it with electric skating and an absolutely relentless non-stop motor that has him hounding puck carriers on the forecheck.

Like Nichushkin, he’s an elite defensive winger who finds ways to be disruptive to opposing offenses on the forecheck, in the neutral zone, and in the defensive zone. Every shift. All game. He’s a puck hound who simply never stops. He’s not incredibly physical, but he’s not shy about engaging in that side of the game when he needs to. He’s the kind of player who may not wear an opposing player down physically but mentally taxes them, like a little brother who spent the entire day nagging you to let him play with you and your friends. He just never stops.

While he isn’t an elite driver of play on offense, he still contributes in this area quite a bit and his skating and work ethic are going to be an immediate godsend to Colorado’s third line as he takes a place alongside Alex Newhook.

Let’s dig into some of the fancy stuff to see where Lehkonen stands out and where he’s going to leave you wanting a bit.

While Lehkonen hasn’t been an ace PK guy by the numbers, he’s at least a threat to score with seven career short-handed goals, including two this season. It’s not incredible and given the influx of guys into that role in Colorado, his usage on that unit will be interesting to watch.

What we really see here is what I profiled above: A great defensive wing who drives some play but struggles to finish. Another feather in his cap is that he’s excellent at staying out of the penalty box with just seven penalties taken this year, but he’s only drawn eight so it really evens out.

Digging into his playstyle more, it stands out where the Avs really valued Lehkonen’s skills.

Referring to the first of these three charts, you see Lehkonen’s game has sharp definitions. He’s great on the forecheck but he struggles in a more controlled entry style, something that will be interesting to see develop given Colorado’s preference to play with the puck versus dumping and chasing it.

This does make the Avalanche better at the dump-and-chase game, however, in case they run against a team that wants to force them to do just that, Lehkonen will be a very valuable weapon in that style of series.

A series built more around puck retrievals and cycling also favors Lehkonen, who creates an absolute ton of offense off the cycle and forecheck game but also creates a high number of chances from transitional play as well.

Like we saw with the Manson acquisition, Lehkonen is excellent at denying the zone to opposing puck carriers and creating transitions the other way. That will fit immediately into Colorado’s overall defensive ethos.

The second chart reinforces Lehkonen’s skill as a forechecker and in the cycle game and the third chart shows just how much offense he was generating in Montreal. That’s a team having a total disaster of a year, but Lehkonen is going to be an absolutely perfect fit in Colorado. He helps them in areas they are weaker in while also thriving in the style they play better than anybody else.

One aspect I don’t talk much about in these analysis pieces is the impact of a player on his teammates and when I was sifting through Lehkonen’s data, I couldn’t help but find this to be a very interesting piece of information.

It’s kind of hard to read, but it shows that nearly every single player was significantly better when playing next to Lehkonen. He had the ultimate “rising tide raises all boats” effect on Canadiens players, forward or defense. Whenever they played with Lehkonen, their expected goals numbers got better defensively and offensively skyrocketed.

Given the plan is to try Lehkonen next to Newhook right away (and certainly when Landeskog is healthy, the idea of him helping Newhook get the puck out of his own zone and creating offense where he’s at his best? That creates an entirely new dynamic on Colorado’s third line.

The last guy Colorado acquired, however, may not bring much of that to the lineup, if he even plays.

An…Andrew Cogliano? He’s still in the league?

He sure is!

The longtime depth player who has been making a living for a while now as a bringer of havoc is now in Colorado at the low cost of a 2024 5th rounder. That’s pretty close to free.

Cogliano is a guy you’ve probably heard of, forgot existed, and then didn’t realize he was still playing because he’s been in San Jose all year as the Sharks slowly morphed into one of the league’s best “THAT GUY?” teams this season.

Simply put, Cogliano at 34-years-old is pretty close to the end of the line of his NHL career. With just 15 points (4G, 11A) in 56 games and only 18 goals combined across the last four seasons, this isn’t the Cogliano you likely remember from earlier in his career who was a mortal lock for 10+ goals per season.

He’s always been a wrecking ball despite being small (5’10”, 175 pounds) and he still has that element in his game. The work ethic and classic veteran intangibles that teams love are all present with Cogliano.

The real question is whether or not he’s an improvement on Colorado’s fourth line. With newly acquired Nico Sturm locked in as the 4C, Cogliano is competing with fellow 1987 birthday (hey, me too!) Darren Helm and the much-younger Logan O’Connor for fourth line duties. Nicolas Aube-Kubel is still in this mix, too, but given his dwindling ice time, it’s safe to say multiple depth additions are going to result in NAK seeing more games from the press box than the ice moving forward.

Let’s look at Cogliano this season.

Let’s just compare the bottom chart against Darren Helm and Logan O’Connor so we can see what this competition looks like.

The Avs will likely be playing two of these guys on their fourth line with Sturm in the middle. If you have a strong feeling about which two, that’s more than I can say. It’s a cheap price, but there’s a very real chance Colorado repeated the deal it made last year when acquiring Carl Soderberg and then watching him be a healthy scratch in the playoffs.

If Cogliano still has the wheels he used to, he might be a better style fit than Soderberg was, but the upside here is pretty limited. You never know with a veteran leaving a bad team playing for nothing and coming to a Cup contender. We see a few of those guys turn back the clock during Cup runs every year and then disappear into the realm of the retired.

One thing I will say about Cogliano, as pointed out by Corey Sznajder:

Can definitely see the mold of player that the Avs are after this deadline. #forecheck pic.twitter.com/NIGyTEzfWt

— Corey Sznajder (@ShutdownLine) March 21, 2022

Would I have personally preferred Ryan Carpenter, a similar style player but a right-handed shot who can play center? Absolutely, especially since the price was basically the same. Am I nitpicking their deadline so much to be having feelings about Ryan Carpenter versus Andrew Cogliano? Also yes, but that’s what I’m here for.

Cool, AJ. Are the Avs better?

For my money, yes. They added three guys that will definitely be in the lineup every night while only removing Jost from the lineup. If Cogliano becomes a lineup regular, it becomes four. I imagine Cogliano probably gets into the lineup somewhere, I’m just not convinced he stays there through a four-round playoff run.

When the Avs are healthy, let’s say the lineup looks like this:

Landeskog – MacKinnon – Rantanen
Nichushkin – Kadri – Burakovsky
Lehkonen – Newhook – Compher
Cogliano – Sturm – O’Connor

Toews – Makar
Girard – Manson
Byram – E. Johnson

Kuemper
Francouz

SCRATCHES: Helm, Aube-Kubel, MacDermid, Murray, J. Johnson

Knowing the Cogliano, O’Connor, E. Johnson spots could be in play for rotation based on play, that’s a very deep and talented roster. Obviously, I’m projecting with Byram but given he practiced in a full-contact jersey today, it appears he’s on track to returning sometime this regular season. If he has a setback, obviously replace him on the third pairing with either Johnson or Murray.

Feel free to quibble with the lineup all you want, but to my eye that’s a group I’m comfortable believing can make some noise in the postseason. There’s quite a bit of versatility baked in here and that defense would be the NHL’s best.

Frankly, given how weak the west is and how good this Avs team has been already this year, it’s time. The front office did its part in adding needed elements.

Time to go win the damn thing.