Ten years later, Colorado's greatest draft class has Avs set up for something special

I was browsing the internet the other day when I stumbled across a picture from the set of the third installment of the Bill & Ted movie franchise. Seeing them walk away from their time-traveling phone booth had me waxing nostalgic about when I moved back to Colorado in 2009 and was watching the first two movies a lot.

Like me, the Avalanche were using 2009 to turn the page. Joe Sakic had just retired, they had just fired general manager Francois Giguere, and were coming off their worst season since moving to Colorado.

The good news was the team had the third overall pick to begin rebuilding. What followed was the best draft class in Avalanche history. Matt Duchene was selected with that third pick and was joined by Ryan O’Reilly and Tyson Barrie as building blocks for a franchise that had almost none before that draft day.

Given the quality of all three players, it’s startling to look back and see how little they accomplished. Duchene and O’Reilly got the Avs back into the postseason in their rookie years but they wouldn’t return until Barrie’s rookie season in 2013-14, which is also the only division title they ever produced.

O’Reilly was gone in 2015 and Duchene and Barrie lived through the trauma that was the 48-point disaster in 2016-17. Duchene’s trade request was finally fulfilled in November of 2017 and Barrie’s tenure predictably ended nine days ago when the Avalanche admitted they weren’t going to give him the money he was seeking on a new contract.

Now all that’s left is a decade of “coulda shoulda woulda.”

981 points in 1,497 games played, four playoff appearances (just one with all three, however), one playoff series win, and one division title.

That’s what the Avalanche got from their best draft class ever.

While that group didn’t restart the Avalanche glory days like expected, the failures along the way just might have been the key to preparing Colorado for the run it appears they might be about to go on.

Their shortcomings (not entirely their fault, of course) led to the team landing Gabriel Landeskog, Nathan MacKinnon, Mikko Rantanen, and Cale Makar. That quartet is the backbone of Colorado’s new hope for reclaiming dominance.

O’Reilly’s deal has matured into J.T. Compher and Nikita Zadorov, who are important complementary players on offense and defense. The deal also eventually landed Colorado both A.J. Greer and Cameron Morrison, along with Nate Clurman.

It’s not a home run but with Compher and Zadorov, the Avalanche can look back and not feel too badly about the return for a player who was determined to force his way out of town.

The Duchene deal was the home run they didn’t hit with the O’Reilly deal. There were so many pieces that it took 19 months for the Avs to finish acquiring all of the players from that deal. To recap, the Avalanche received:

-Sam Girard
-Vladislav Kamenev
-2018 2nd round pick (traded for two picks that became Justus Annunen and Danila Zhuravylov)
-Andrew Hammond
-Shane Bowers
-Bowen Byram
-Matthew Stienburg

Girard has become a rock-solid NHLer already, Kamenev’s awful luck saw him suffer two season-ending injuries but remains part of the forward corps, Hammond stole a playoff game for the Avs, and they have five (!) prospects in their system as a result of the deal.

Byram obviously headlines that group and certainly much is expected of him after being selected fourth overall. His future could be on the top pairing next to Makar with Girard manning a second pairing.

The trio of Makar, Girard, and Byram is probably the most exciting young D trio in the entire NHL and two-thirds of it came as a result of trading Matt Duchene. Duchene might not have been able to produce many meaningful memories in his Avalanche tenure but his trade could very well be what puts Colorado over the top in the future.

Then came Barrie’s trade, which was less future-focused and more built around the present. O’Reilly and Duchene were built for a better tomorrow. After making the second round of the playoffs, the Avs clearly feel the time is now to get serious about winning at a higher level.

Barrie’s trade to Toronto was almost entirely about filling the team’s biggest need, the second-line center. Nazem Kadri is a perfect fit in Colorado for a myriad of reasons but they also landed a young defender in Calle Rosen who could be a nice bottom-pairing find for the organization as well as a third-round pick.

Overall, the deal for Barrie landed Colorado their 2C, a depth defenseman signed cheaply for two years, and a top-100 draft pick. It’s a healthy mixture of today and tomorrow with an obviously heavy lean on helping the team today.

Expectations are higher than at any point since the 2009 draft for the Avalanche organization. Just making the playoffs isn’t the goal next year; winning the Central Division is.

Of the 23 players on Colorado’s potential opening night roster, eight could be the direct result of trading the 2009 trio. Kamenev, Kadri, Compher, Greer, Girard, Zadorov, Byram,  and Rosen are all in play. Five of those are probably locks with Greer, Byram, and Rosen all fighting for depth jobs in training camp.

When the Avalanche crushed the 2009 draft, they hoped they were building another juggernaut. They just didn’t expect it to take until 2019 for its reign of terror to begin.