That forward core is a far way from contender level, yikes...

Lmfao, definitely still Cup Contenders😂

Not even close lol. Last year you lost Kadri, Burakovsky, Landeskog to injury amongst others and went from 1/16 in playoff goals scored the year you won the cup, to 13/16 last year, getting knocked out by an 8th seed in their second year as a team, who would go on to lose to the Stars, who would lose the round after.

This year you've somehow managed to make your forward core worse both offensively and defensively, with no player beyond your top line who even scored 20 goals last year.

Good luck I guess..

Lmao this team is better then Dallas still

Arguably maybe? Like I said you got knocked out RD 1 by an 8th seed and got worse. Doesn't really scream cup contender to me...

Tatar scored 20 last year, Nuchuskin was on pace for 26, RJo was on pace for like 17-18. Dallas only had 6 guys with 20+ goals last year, Colorado should at least have 5. There's definitely potential for this forward group to be really good but doesn't mean they will be. Their D-core is still elite, so they are definitely a contender.

Teams get upset in the NHL all the time, which is why the NHL playoffs are interesting to watch.

One of the best defence in the NHL. I’m sure they are fine. Definitely can be a ECF and Finals team. Underrating them

Yeah, I just finished making a comment about their defense being elite lol.

Some interesting mental gymnastics going on here to say the least. You're right, I did miss Tatar who scored 20 on the nose. There's nothing even remotely impressive about anything you said though, and comparing their scoring to that of the Stars last year is interesting to say the least.

Yes, they have an elite D core. That's exactly why they shouldn't be satisfied with a forward group that awful....

You can call it interesting mental gymnastics but there's 4 guys who had 20+ goals last year, and Nuchiskin had 17 in 53 games (25 in 62 the previous year), so it's not a stretch to think they could have 5 guys with 20+ goals.

I know you were criticizing the forward group, but what I was saying was that you are overlooking the potential. I think the biggest thing that they missed in losing Kadri is having a 2C, not the production, and so if RJO can fulfill those 2C duties, then they should be better. I'm sure they would like to have a better group but they can be satisfied with what they have because, at the end of the day, their Dcore is going to make them a contender which is why I mentioned them.

Worth noting that Vegas only had 3 guys with 20+ goals last year + Stone (17G in 43GP) and the Oilers only had 4 guys. The Oilers were 1st in league scoring though, Dallas was 7th, Colorado was 11th, and Vegas was 14th. Seattle was 4th. If we look at which of these teams had the least goals allowed it was Dallas who was 3rd overall. Colorado was 9th (3rd best in the West - Minnesota was 6th best overall), Vegas 11th, Seattle 15th, and Oilers 17th.

I don't want to have the amount of 20 goal scorers (or lack thereof) be turned into the foundation for success, 20 goals is not necessarily impressive, I was simply making a point earlier. You seem to be taking off and running with it to the point where you're overlooking the fact the Oilers had 64, 52, 37, 36 goal scorers, with E. Kane on pace for 32, lumping them altogether as simply 5 "20 goal" scorers. I think we both see the problem here...

I don't want to get too caught up in this, but I'm suggesting this forward core does not have nearly enough potential.

You're replacing Landeskog with Drouin? Kadri with RJO? Burakovsky with Tatar? Compher with Colton? Newhook with O'Connor? Miles Wood is a good bottom 6 guy I guess?

Colorado went from being 1st in G/PG during the playoffs the year they won the cup, to 13th (out of 16 playoff teams) the year after, getting knocked out by the 8th seed in their second year as a franchise and who themselves never made it past round two. The reasons for the offensive decline are obvious and the results speak for themselves.

They've gotten worse since last year and I don't understand why they're not addressing this obvious need given the fact they should be legit contenders with guys like Rantanen, MacKinnon, Makar and Toews on the roster. You're right, that should be good enough for any team to be a contender but that forward core would make them an exception....

I think you missed where I said the Oilers had the most goals found and where some other Western teams including Colorado compared to each other. Let's just move on from that since we both agree that the exact number of 20+ goal scorers isn't really relevant.





Kadri and Burakovsky left the year prior, and Landeskog was out the entire season. So it's really Compher, Rodrigues, Newhook, etc...getting replaced by RJo, Tatar, Colton, etc.. So, even if you think there is a drop-off from last year, it's not as bad as you think. I'm sure Newhook will do great in MTL under St Louis but Colorado will miss him just as much as MTL will miss Drouin. Colton is a solid player who could become just as good as Rodrigues, he's only 25. I would rather have a former 1C that has fallen off in RJo as the 2C over Compher who is a 3C that just over-achieved. You might disagree with my opinions on those players but I think it's safe to say that their forward core is not much worse than last year. You're comparing their current roster to their Stanley Cup roster.

Obviously, you can still argue that their team last year wasn't good enough but at the end of the day since they got upset. I would say doesn't make much sense to compare their GF/G in the playoffs in a Cup-winning year to one that they lost in the 1st round. There definitely was a decline from their Cup year but, as I mentioned they are still one of the best in the West, tied in 4th for GF and 3rd least in the GF category.

I'm referring back to the cup winning team as my comparison because that's the Avs team that had the actual success, not the one that bowed out early last year. Of course it makes sense to compare the GF/G between their cup run and their first round exit last year, that's literally the reason for the stark contrast in the team's success. I realized Landeskog, Kadri and Burakovsky were not there last year, I'm arguing that's why they got the result they did.

It may not be much worse than last year's forward core, but last year's forward core wasn't good enough either. That's the whole point here....

Oh okay, it wasn't clear since you also said that they got worse than last year. I did edit the previous post, see the last part if you wish.

Comparing the GF/G rankings (that's better used as a reference point) between the two runs just tells you that one team most likely won the Cup, and that the other went out in the 1st round. If you compare both the GF/G rate and GA/rate values from the playoffs, rather than their standing, you'll get an idea of how their series went at the least but again it might not tell you much about what actually went wrong. You definitely want to compare the regular seasons (beyond saying they got fewer goals/gave up more goals) and see if it tells anything other than they weren't as good overall.

21-22 season 3.76 GF/G (4th) 2.83 (9th)
22-23 season 3.34 GF/G (11th) 2.72 (9th)

2022 playoffs 4.25 GF/G (most) 2.75 GA/G (3rd least)
2023 playoffs 2.71 GF/G (12th most) 2.57 GA/G (3rd least)

Basically, can see that last year they were better defensively in both the regular season and the playoffs but ranked in the same position in the league while in the Cup run year, they were better offensively which isn't surprising. In 2021-22, the Avs improved from the regular season to the playoffs both offensively and defensively. In 2022-23, they improved defensively from the regular season to the playoffs but a massive decline in goal scoring. So, yeah in the end you're going to conclude that they needed more offense, and Colorado's management probably feel like they what they can to address that for now.

Man, you're really galaxy-braining this to say the least, but yes; they lost a lot of offensive talent and were no longer good enough offensively to achieve what they had the year prior. Rather than addressing this, they took another step back. I'd be deeply disappointed as an Av's fan if management thought they had done enough with this roster, it shouldn't even be up for debate tbh.

The guy isn’t galaxy-braining this, he’s providing you with a thoughtful reply that’s well organized. Capfriendly would be better if more people commented like that.

Avs lost a lot of talent because they had really good value contracts (Kadri at $4.5M, Burakovsky at $4.9M, Nuke at $2.5M, MacKinnon at $6.3M). When those people score a lot of goals, other teams will pay them a lot more money. The Avs aren’t going to have the same caliber of team as they did during the cup run.

Now they’re trying to find value contracts to extend the window, but they can’t commit to anything long term with Landy out for another season. Drouin at sub-$1M, RyJo at $4M, and Tatar at $1.5M are all bets that the Avs can get cheap production. Will some of those gambles fail? Yeah probably. But it’s a viable approach nonetheless.

If they get the RJo of 2021-22 they'll be fine, if they get the RJo of last year then they probably are in for another disappointing year. I'm sure they are also hoping that Nichuskin can at least be there for most of their games in the playoffs, he was definitely a huge part of their success in 2022. They really only had one line in terms of scoring in the playoffs, maybe now they might have at least two if Tatar-RJo-Nuke can mesh. We'll have to wait and see.

Did you not read any of what I said previously? I literally explained this all already. I understand why players walk to free agency, the point is you haven't done nearly enough to replace them. Have you actually looked at the recent production of RJo, Drouin and Tatar? Signing those players is not even close to a viable approach.

Not to mention, the elite D core you had on your run has only gotten better with the progression of Byram and the growth of Makar. A top 4 of Toews - Makar + Byram - Manson is still top 5 in the league, what need is there for a $5 mil cap hit on your 3rd pair when your forward core is that weak? You could have used the cap you're spending on Johansen and Girard to sign Kadri and still have $2 mil for a 3rd pair D, spending more than $2 mil on a 3rd pair D is just poor cap allocation anyway, not to mention the return you might get for Girard.

You also trade Newhook who is 22 and was your best bet for filling that 2C role in the future, and replace him with a 3rd line winger in Colton, paying him $4 mil for years to play 3C, despite him having similar production to Newhook now and being 5 years older?

Your forward core is the island of misfit toys right now. Johansen was a literal cap dump, from a non-playoff team no less. Drouin couldn't even hold down a top 9 role on a basement team in the Habs, nobody wanted to sign Tatar which is why he was picked up this late in the offseason, Wood and Colton are the cast-offs of contenders in the east.

To put it plainly, with the talent you have at certain spots in your roster you should be a contender, with now being your window of contention. This team is not even close to being cup-worthy and any suggestion otherwise is just laughable.

Mikko and nate put in over 100 pts last year on a severely depleted team, lehky put in the cup winner, and series winner, Val had conn Smythe votes, colton has gone to the finals 2 years in a row... all stanley cup champions. Sure there are some questions but all good skilled big tough players with the best defense in the league, and a top 10 goalie.

Must be all the years watching the maple leafs having you confused to what a contender looks like.
What a mess that team is, they sign 5 mins a night Reaves and worst metrics in the league klingberg, and a year each for domi and bertuzzi.. decent upgrade but that doesn't mean marner figures out how to score in the playoffs, or Nylander to play defensively, you're one tweeked groin away from Joseph woll starting behind a slower aging defense.

Dude it's the cap era. Something's gotta give. And that awful forward core still helped us to a 109 point season last year. I'll take that every single year and be very happy about it. The team was riddled with injuries and tired from a short summer. I'm fine with them taking a few risks in the top 6, especially because the defense provides so much offense as well.

If you watched Newhook play last year you would not be making those comments. He was lost on the ice both offensively and defensively and was not going to be the answer at 2C.

Drouin and RyJo are risks, but those are the risks you have to take to comply with the cap. This team has chosen to dedicate a good amount of money to defense and some key offensive players and needed to find cost-effective ways to supplement that. Now it's up to a very capable coaching staff to get the most out of them. There's no other FA's that were on the market this year that would've made sense for us in terms of talent and cap.

Finally, we waited out Tatar in the same way we waited out Evan Rodrigues last year. Tatar was looking for term and the way the market played out he wasn't going to get it. It's not like he's been an awful player the past two seasons by any stretch. So I think it's disingenuous to say no one wanted him.

I'm not here to defend the Leafs, but I will say their offseason moves have been much better than the Avs, leaving them in a much better position to contend. You know what happened to all those guys you listed in last year's playoffs? They all got knocked out rd 1 because the teams they played on bled a considerable amount of talent and didn't do enough to replace them.

Also, where do people get this idea that Marner doesn't score in the playoffs? Shouldn't you just be able to go and look? lol

You're one tweaked groin away from having Francouz start as well, Woll is a better goalie. You're also one tweaked groin away from having center depth of RJo - Colton - Myers? - Cogliano?

You're zero tweaked groins away from having LW depth of Lehkonnen, Drouin, Tatar... Basically montreal's 3rd line a couple years ago.

Newhook started the year as a 21 year old... based on your criticism of his play, I can't wait to hear what you have to say about RJo and Drouin. You don't have to take those risks, that's just how you're choosing to allocate your cap.

We got knocked out the first round by a goalie standing on his head and a Seattle team that was on a roll. That's hockey. The guys he listed won a cup the year before, and don't tell me it was all because of Kadri and Burakovsky. We haven't replaced those guys full yet, but that's how you build a cup team. When Kadri and Burakovsky came to the avs they were seen as projects. Our coaching staff knows how to take projects like that and turn them into very good players.

Cool, looking forward to criticizing them if and when the time comes.

Yes, Newhook was 21 years old but he had two full seasons under his belt and had been given multiple opportunities to take that 2C role and simply couldn't. It wasn't the stats either, it was that he simply didn't know where to be on the ice. I can get over pucks not going in the net or a guy just needing to add some size as he grows to be an effective player. Newhook was not keeping up with the hockey IQ part of the game and that's why he kept being relegated to bottom 6 minutes. Also, we turned him into Ross Colton and a first round draft pick so I view that as great asset management by our front office.