Colorado Avalanche

It doesn't look as though Erik Johnson will be leaving the Colorado Avalanche anytime soon. According to Chris Johnston of Sportsnet, the 27-year-old defenseman agreed to a seven-year, $42 million extension with the team. The Avalanche confirmed the deal.

TSN's Darren Dreger added that Johnson will have a limited no-trade clause as part of the new contract.

Johnson is overjoyed to remain in the Mile-High City:

So excited to be in Denver for 7 more years! Thank you the best owners the Kroenke family. Also, Joe Sakic, Patrick Roy, Greg Sherman & 1/2

— Erik Johnson (@6ErikJohnson) September 22, 2015

& of course my great teammates & all the awesome @Avalanche fans, can't wait to help bring you more Cups to Denver! Thx for all the support!

— Erik Johnson (@6ErikJohnson) September 22, 2015

Teammate Matt Duchene is equally happy to see Johnson sticking around in Colorado:   

@6ErikJohnson @Avalanche Huge congrats bud, you deserve it 👍🏻

— Matt Duchene (@Matt9Duchene) September 23, 2015

"Erik is a big part of the core of this team," said Avalanche general manager Joe Sakic in the team's press release. "We felt it was important for our franchise to secure his rights for the long term as he enters the prime years of his career."

Since getting traded to the Avalanche in 2011, Johnson has become a fixture on Colorado's defensive line. He also has 28 goals and 74 assists in 253 regular-season games for the franchise.

Johnson's original deal expired after the 2015-16 season, so hammering out the extension before the season removes what could've been a minor source of drama throughout the upcoming campaign.

Between this deal and the additions of Francois Beauchemin and Nikita Zadorov over the summer, Colorado has shored up what was a somewhat inconsistent defense last year.

Of the NHL’s top offensive defencemen, Tyson Barrie is perhaps the most under-appreciated. In fact, unless you follow the Colorado Avalanche closely, you’re probably wondering whether I’m even right to call Barrie one of the NHL’s top offensive defencemen.

A look at the NHL’s official site suggests there’s a case to be made. Barrie is tied for eighth among defenceman in scoring entering action on Monday, with 46 points in 69 games.

At first glance, it looks like a breakout season for the 23-year-old, who is building on a 38-point campaign from his first full season in 2013-14.

But that first glance doesn’t tell the whole story. The following chart shows the NHL’s 10 best defencemen in terms of points/hour at five-on-five over the last two seasons (minimum 1,000 minutes played):

Rk.	Player	Points	Ice Time	Points/Hour
1	Victor Hedman	54	2120.3	1.53
2	Tyson Barrie	46	2079.7	1.33
3	Erik Karlsson	67	3061.5	1.31
4	Hampus Lindholm	49	2454.4	1.20
5	Ryan Ellis	37	1854.5	1.20
6	Mark Giordano	44	2246.9	1.17
7	Duncan Keith	53	2721.5	1.17
8	Alex Pietrangelo	53	2806.2	1.13
9	Roman Josi	53	2849.1	1.12
10	Sami Vatanen	30	1619.2	1.11

Players falling just outside the top 10 include P.K. Subban, Dougie Hamilton, Torey Krug, Mike Green, Shea Weber and Olli Maatta.

Obviously, we’re looking at only a tiny part of the game when we consider five-on-five scoring, but even so this represents a spectacular accomplishment for Barrie. From the moment he graduated to full-time NHLer until now, only one other defenceman in the game has been likelier to score a point on any given shift.

Frankly, that is ridiculous.

Barrie’s power-play totals are also very strong, albeit not “second in the NHL” strong. But in concert with his incredible even-strength numbers, it’s no exaggeration to say that he’s in rarefied air as an offensive defenceman.

He still has some work to do to become an elite two-way defenceman.

The Avs do a much better job of outshooting and outscoring the opposition with Barrie on the ice than with Barrie on the bench, but we’re also talking about a player who isn't generally matched up against top opponents and has the advantage of starting shifts more frequently in the offensive zone than most of his teammates.

Colorado head coach Patrick Roy recently told NHL.com’s Rick Sadowski that Barrie’s defensive game was improving, but he also made it clear that he was starting from a place where the coaches felt they needed to shelter him:

Defensively, early in the season, we were not comfortable to play him against the top two lines. Recently, he's playing really well defensively. I think if you have a good mix when to go and not to go, that will save some energy and allow him to play better defensively.

It’s not surprising to hear those sentiments from Roy. Barrie is, after all, only 5’10” and 190 pounds, making him one of the smaller regular defencemen in the league. He is also only 23 years old and has fewer than 200 NHL games under his belt.

Conventional wisdom suggests that defencemen take longer to develop than forwards because defensive responsibilities take more time to learn. Barrie is still in early days as an NHL player and will doubtless progress, even if he’s never going to be the kind of player who can physically dominate opposing forwards.

But regardless of his flaws in the defensive end of the rink, Barrie’s offensive abilities are awfully special. In that department, he’s easily the best defenceman in Colorado and one of the very best in the NHL.

Statistics courtesy of war-on-ice.com, behindthenet.ca and NHL.com. 

Jonathan Willis covers the NHL for Bleacher Report. Follow him on Twitter for more of his work.

Forward Nathan MacKinnon and the Colorado Avalanche have suffered through a difficult 2014-15 season, and the former first overall selection won't be able to see it through to the end.

Continue for updates.

---

MacKinnon Out for Remainder of Regular Season

Friday, March 6

The Avs' playoff hopes have been hanging by a thread for quite some time, but that thread has likely been cut with the news of MacKinnon's status.

According to the organization's official Twitter account, the 19-year-old center will miss at least six weeks with a broken foot:

UPDATE: Nathan MacKinnon will be out 6-8 weeks with a fractured foot.

— x - Colorado Avalanche (@Avalanche) March 6, 2015

After putting up 63 points as a rookie last season, MacKinnon regressed this year to the tune of 14 goals and 38 points in 64 games. Perhaps not coincidentally, the Avalanche have fallen on hard times as well.

This has been a nightmarish campaign for Colorado considering how great 2013-14 was. MacKinnon's injury is the cherry on top, but it may ultimately prove to be a positive since he can now focus on getting right for 2015-16.

Follow @MikeChiari on Twitter

NEW YORK — Matt Duchene considered the question, one he has no doubt heard multiple times this season, about why this year’s Colorado’s Avalanche have been losing so many more games compared to last season.

He immediately referenced a pivotal play in Thursday night’s game against the New York Rangers. 

With the teams skating four-on-four, Duchene, Ryan O’Reilly and Erik Johnson looked as dangerous as a blow dryer near a bathtub on a three-on-two. With Duchene carrying the puck, he backed down the Rangers and dropped the puck for a wide-open O’Reilly. 

The pass slid off O’Reilly’s stick and onto the blade of the Rangers’ Derek Stepan. Seconds later, Stepan scored on a two-on-one, and the Avs’ lead was gone.

“That play there, if you go back and watch it,” Duchene said, “if O’Reilly and I connect on that shot, it’s probably a goal for us, because he would’ve been by himself at the hash marks with a wide-open shot, and he’s a great goal scorer.

“That’s the kind of stuff that’s been happening to us a lot.” 

It didn’t cost the Avalanche two points, as they left Madison Square Garden with a 4-3 shootout victory, but the good bounces that seemingly followed them everywhere last season have abandoned them this season.

And it’s hard to say this wasn’t inevitable. 

This year’s club, not unlike last year’s club, has been decimated in possession metrics.

The 2014-15 Avalanche are hovering around 44 percent in Fenwick, which ranks 29th in the league, and it’s translated into a 5-8-5 start. 

Year	GPG	GAPG	Shots per game	Shots allowed	Fenwick	PDO
2013-14	2.99	3.17	28.7	35.6	46.7	101.8
2014-15	2.33	2.63	29.5	32.7	43.9	99.4

The 2013-14 Avalanche finished the season around 47 percent in Fenwick, which ranked 26th in the league, yet that team finished with 112 points and opened the season 14-2-0.

Fourteen. Two. And oh.

Duchene compared the two starts and offered an honest assessment of last year’s first six weeks.

“Last year, everything that went right, did,” Duchene said. “We should have lost more games in the early going than we did. We had timely goals, big goaltending.

“This year, it’s been the opposite. Not that we haven’t had great goaltending, but we haven’t been able to score. Games where we’re not great defensively and Varly’s getting peppered and Varly lets in three or four, we were winning those games 4-3 or 5-4 last year. This year, scoring’s been hard to come by.”

Instead of Semyon Varlamov making the big save on Stepan to preserve the lead and mask the mistake of Duchene’s turnover, the puck squirted past the goaltender and into the net. 

It’s the type of moment that doesn’t tell you everything you need to know about fancy stats, but it highlights the subtle difference between this year and last year and how living on the edge isn’t a recipe for success over the long haul. 

Ask Duchene or any player about his Corsi, Fenwick or anything about those types of analytics, and you’re likely to hear about how he doesn’t think about that stuff—as he shouldn’t—but his words echo what those statistics have shown for more than a year about the Avs. 

Varlamov, who finished fifth in Hart Trophy voting last season, earned every vote he received. In 63 games, Varlamov went 41-14-6 with a 2.41 goals-against average and .927 save percentage, the latter ranking him third in the league.

During that 14-2-0 start, Varlamov went 9-2 (backup Jean-Sebastien Giguere was 5-0) with a .936 save percentage. Varlamov was stopping practically everything he could see and a lot of the shots he couldn’t see. 

This season, Varlamov hasn’t been at that level, but he hasn’t been dragging down his teammates, either. He is 3-5-4 with a 3.03 goals-against average but an above-average .918 save percentage, which is a tick above his career average. It’s the type of GAA/save percentage mismatch that’s the result of the leaky Avalanche allowing 36 shots per game.

If Varlamov had a .936 save percentage this season, he’d have allowed eight or nine fewer goals. 

Varlamov’s allowing more goals and the Avs are, as Duchene explained, scoring fewer. 

The Avs had the second-best five-on-five shooting percentage last season, according to stats.hockeyanalysis.com, posting an 8.77 over 82 games; this season, the number has dropped to 7.59 percent.

A little more than one percent? How much of a difference can that make?

The Avs have 28 goals at five-on-five this season; if they were shooting at last year’s 8.77 percent, they’d have three more five-on-five goals. 

Last year’s power play, which was fifth at 19.8 percent, is sitting at 14.1 percent. The Avs had a power-play shooting percentage of 13.04 percent; this year, that’s dropped to 8.97 percent, eighth-worst in the league.

What does that five percent mean? It means that if the Avs were scoring five-on-four goals this season at the same rate they were last season, they’d have 10 power-play goals instead of nine.

That's a difference of four goals scored and eight or nine goals allowed, a 13-goal swing for a team that has a minus-15 goal differential. 

It has all conspired to leave the Avs with a 3-3-5 record in one-goal games, the worst mark in the league.

Last season, the Avs were 28-4-8 in one-goal games, best mark in the league.

Welcome to Regression Town, USA, population Avs.

The wonderful luck that was so prevalent and working so often in the favor of the Avs last season has relocated, seemingly splitting time between Ottawa and Calgary.

“You’ve gotta create your own luck,” budding superstar Nathan MacKinnon said. “When you’re not playing well, you’re not going to get very lucky.” 

And that’s the heart of any and all possession metrics: When you’re throwing the puck at the other team’s net more often than they are throwing the puck at your own, there’s a better chance of having luck on your side. 

The Avs are minus-137 in Fenwick events in 2014-15; only the Buffalo Sabres, who barely resemble an NHL team at this point, are worse at minus-314.

At this point last year, the Avs were minus-63 in Fenwick events, according to war-on-ice, which is not great by any stretch but is twice as good as this year’s club. 

That doesn’t seem like an impactful difference, minus-74 over 17 games, an average of about four more per game, but the Avs have lived far more dangerously this season and have paid for it at an average rate, as evidenced by their 99.4 PDO.

Think about it: The Avs, a bad possession team a year ago, are twice as worse this season and aren't getting as many bounces as they did in 2013-14, when their PDO was 101.8.

If only they paid for Paul Stastny and retained P.A. Parenteau, perhaps they could have minimized some of this damage.

The Avalanche made several decisions during the offseason that altered the lineup in negative ways. Instead of re-signing Stastny, they let him walk to the St. Louis Blues on a four-year, $28 million deal. They signed the aging Jarome Iginla to a three-year, $16 million in an attempt to replace Stastny’s production in a cost-effective manner, but it hasn't worked.

Parenteau was also dealt to the Montreal Canadiens in exchange for Daniel Briere, a move that will baffle anthropologists for centuries after our planet is drowned by melting polar ice caps. Briere has been a healthy scratch seven times this season and a non-factor when in the lineup. 

The Avs replaced Stastny and Parenteau with Iginla and Briere. The results should not be a surprise to anyone.

Stastny and Parenteau were Nos. 1 and 3 on the Avs last season in Fenwick at 51.1 percent and 49.9 percent, respectively. They weren’t dominating opponents, clearly, but they were the one-eyed men in the land of the shot-attempt blind. 

Iginla was at 52.9 percent with the Boston Bruins last season, a nice number but one that was slightly negative relative to his teammates, somewhat of a red flag. Some wondered if going from a slower Bruins team that feasted off the cycle to a faster Avs team that did a lot of damage off the rush would hinder Iginla, and perhaps it has—Iginla’s Fenwick is an abysmal 43.2 percent. 

Briere is even more putrid but was also more predictable; he’s at 41 percent this season after he was at 47.2 percent last season and healthy scratched at times with the Canadiens. 

The Avalanche ignored the numbers. They spoke of shot quality and timely scoring and clutch saves and assumed it would all continue this season even if they made moves to ship out talented possession players and replaced them with inferior players.

Teams can make their own luck, no doubt about it. But teams need players who can consistently create the situations that can lead to good luck, and the Avs, who had so few of those players last season, let two of their best go in the offseason and suddenly find themselves lamenting the bounces that aren’t going their way.

Duchene said it best when asked if the team is playing that much worse this season or if it’s that the bounces aren’t coming as frequently: “It’s a bit of both.”

If only someone in the Avalanche front office could have made that connection over the summer.

All statistics via NHL.com and stats.hockeyanaysls.com.

Dave Lozo covers the NHL for Bleacher Report. You can follow him on Twitter: @DaveLozo.

Nathan MacKinnon and the Colorado Avalanche have dug themselves into a hole early this NHL season, and it'll be up to the young superstar's growth in his second season to get them out.

Colorado was a surprising playoff team under new head coach Patrick Roy last season, and forward MacKinnon was its brightest star. The 2013-14 Calder Cup winner for top rookie, MacKinnon finished last season with 24 goals, 39 assists and 63 points. His postseason put him in the national spotlight, as he anchored the Avalanche with 10 points in seven games. 

However, the Avalanche have sputtered out of the gate this season, sporting a 3-6-5 record, last in the Central Division. The team hasn't looked sharp all the way around, particularly in the defensive end. Its young superstar hasn't fared much better, notching just four assists in the team's first 10 games.

Though MacKinnon has come on lately (4 goals, 1 assist in past four games heading into Wednesday night), he'll need to produce more for his struggling team. Based on what we've seen so far from this superstar, it's hard not to imagine him coming around.

The Avalanche will bounce back, and MacKinnon will lead the charge.

What makes a good player great is when extreme talent meets extreme competitiveness. MacKinnon is a player who won't accept failure and will work hard to constantly better himself.

A recent video of him racing speedskater Charles Hamelin showed just how physically gifted young MacKinnon is.

The immense skills are backed up by a intense spirit for competition, as MacKinnon stated in a recent article by Adrian Dater of The Denver Post.

I can say I'm just going to go out and play relaxed, but I'm a pretty fiery, competitive guy and I'm sure I'll get frustrated at times and I need to channel that. There's still some extra weight on my shoulders with this team, but now that I've been in the league I know a lot better what to expect.

One of the troubling things about MacKinnon's slump to start the season has been his lack of goal production, even dating back to last year. As Austin Manak of Fansided.com pointed out, counting only the first 10 games of this season, MacKinnon scored just six goals in his previous 40 games. That's certainly not a fruitful output for a young superstar. 

Developing consistency is something that will come with age for a young player. In fact, as this tweet by Mike Kelly of the NHL Network suggests, the slow start to this season was actually an improvement over last year.

https://twitter.com/MikeKellyNHL/status/528013898205888512

What can't be learned easily, and what MacKinnon is slowly developing, is a patience with the game and the puck. An excellent illustration of this was posted by Harrison Prolic in an article for The Hockey Writers.

MacKinnon gave the New York Islanders a fright on Halloween eve, notching his first two goals of the season. The first one is of particular mention: As chaos ensues in front of the net, MacKinnon has the patience to get the goalie to commit with a few quick dekes, and then go top shelf. As Prolic states, this is a rare display of patience for a player who is in a goal-scoring drought.

MacKinnon is the next big thing for the Avalanche. Colorado is a young team with young players, the 19-year-old MacKinnon being one of them. The young superstar is still developing as a player, and, as such, one should expect some growing pains.

But if there is one thing that is clear, a tough work ethic and fiery competitiveness won't keep the forward down. Once the Avalanche solidify their defense and MacKinnon heats up, they should be back in the playoff picture in the Western Conference.

What do you think Colorado fans? Will the Avalanche make it to the playoffs for a second season under coach Patrick Roy? Will MacKinnon have a better season than last year? Leave your comments and opinions below!

All statistics courtesy of NHL.com.

Is Colorado Avalanche forward Nathan MacKinnon as fast as the commercial says he is?

As part of CCM's new TV ad, the 19-year-old Avalanche star races Canadian Olympian Charles Hamelin to see who has the better acceleration. Check out the video here:

Though the commercial is hardly a scientific study, MacKinnon's spot in the ad has stirred a debate: Who is the fastest skater in the NHL today?

The Canadian Press covered this topic, via NHL.com, citing speedsters such as Taylor Hall, Carl Hagelin, Michael Grabner, Andrew Cogliano and Blake Wheeler as candidates.

Hall was asked for his opinion on the topic, per the report, and he said the following regarding MacKinnon: "When we played against him last year he took off at one point during the game and I'd never seen anything like that."

Most spectators would add Alex Ovechkin, Phil Kessel and Erik Karlsson to the debate, as Elliotte Friedman of Sportsnet did in his "30 Thoughts" column.

But who really is the fastest?

That's where PowerScout Hockey comes in. The optical data tracking and collection service works with 29 of the NHL's 30 teams, tracking skater speed and acceleration, among other services.

Though the 2014-15 season is young, PowerScout Hockey has enough data to shed light on the debate about who the fastest skater is.

It notes that Hagelin has the fastest top-end speed at 37.1 km/hr, with MacKinnon and Kessel tied for second at 36.3 km/hr. In terms of acceleration, Ovechkin has the quickest startup at 9.5 m/s2.

Per PowerScout Hockey's report: "[I]n our mind the case can be made Ovechkin, Karlsson and Hall/Hagelin in that order look to be the best overall combination of both [speed and acceleration]."

Sadly for fans of the young Avs star, MacKinnon isn't mentioned among the fastest overall skaters, as his acceleration is ranked only 19th in the NHL.

That's not too shabby, but he is not the fastest skater—at least for now.

What do you think, Colorado Avalanche fans? Should Nathan MacKinnon be counted among the NHL's fastest? Are PSH's conclusions useless, as they don't measure the skater's speed with the puck? Share your comments below.

Colorado’s offseason signing of Jarome Iginla has been widely acclaimed, and understandably so. One of the game’s most accomplished players, Iginla is respected in equal measure for his impressive work on the ice and for his leadership and character off it. The Avs are counting on significant contributions in both areas, hoping that Iginla will not only provide a key on-ice presence but that he’ll also serve as an elder statesman for a young and improving team.

“Jarome’s track record speaks for itself,” general manager Joe Sakic said in a statement on the team website. “He is one of the top goal scorers of all time, as well as a great leader. His addition will bolster our offense.”

The NHL, however, is a “what have you done for me lately” kind of league. Past achievements are considerably less important than what a player can do in the present and what he’ll do in the future. It’s also an unforgiving league to teams that make sentimental decisions. Colorado has committed to the 37-year-old Igilna to the tune of a three-year deal at $5.33 million per season, and his ability to continue producing at a high level will be paramount.

Aging studies suggest that the Avs have taken on some significant risk with this acquisition. SB Nation’s Eric Tulsky’s study on the scoring rate of forwards is the gold standard here, and he found that most players peak in their mid-20s, score steadily for a half-decade and then see a sharp drop in scoring:

In addition, we now have an estimate of how even strength scoring ability changes through a player's 30's. On average, players retain about 90% of their scoring through age 29, but the drop from there is pretty sharp -- they hit 80% at age 31, 70% at age 32-33, and 60% at age 35.

Does Iginla follow this general pattern? I’ve charted Iginla’s five-on-five points per hour from ages 30-36 against a projected scoring curve based on Tulsky’s work and Iginla’s scoring at age 30. Tulsky’s numbers only go to age 37, but I’ve projected to 39 at an estimated rate of decline based on the curve from 30-37:

We see that the numbers I’ve used here actually outpace Iginla’s performance for the bulk of this six-year stretch, though the veteran forward had a very strong age-36 campaign in Boston.

The projection above is in terms of five-on-five points per hour; most people don’t think about scoring in those terms. A different way to express it is relative to the rest of the league. If the projection is accurate over the next three years, Iginla will score at a lower-end second-line rate at age 37, at an exceptional third-line rate at age 38 and at an average third-line rate at age 39.

That’s still pretty abstract, but there’s another way we can express it. Using Hockey-Reference.com, I looked for players who had similar age-36 seasons, people who were within 25 percent of Iginla’s goals, points and shots per game at the same age. I ended up with six names (Martin St. Louis, Dino Ciccarelli, Owen Nolan, Bill Guerin, Mike Modano and Mike Gartner), five of whom are goal-scoring wingers. Taking their average performance and adjusting it to Iginla’s 78 games played, they’re pretty much the spitting image of the new Av:

Player	GP	G	A	PTS	Shots
Iginla	78	30	31	61	209
Composite	78	32	28	60	218

What happened to them from age 37-39? Here are the average box scores, extrapolated over 82 games in each case:

Age	GP	G	A	PTS	Shots
37	82	24	32	56	215
38	82	22	30	52	208
39	81	21	24	45	205

If Iginla has good health and plays out his contract, those seem like pretty reasonable numbers. Our comparable group includes some warning examples, though. Nolan retired after a disappointing age-37 campaign, and Ciccarelli followed early into his age-38 season. Only half the players from the original group (Guerin, Modano and St. Louis, who has yet to play his age-39 season) were still in the majors at that point.

Iginla did well to get a three-year contract from Colorado. History suggests he won’t be producing like a $5.0 million player by the end of it.

Jonathan Willis covers the NHL for Bleacher Report. Follow him on Twitter for more of his work. Stats courtesy BehindTheNet.ca and Hockey-Reference.com. Salary information courtesy of CapGeek.com. 

The Colorado Avalanche turned a lot of heads late season, with many of them coming after Patrick Roy made a statement very early on in the season.

The Avs legend—and newest bench boss—shook the glass in the face of Bruce Boudreau, head coach of the Anaheim Ducks, and it seemed like he was trying to set a tone early on in the season. It worked, as the Avs had a pretty awesome season, even though a first-round exit was less than ideal.

Despite this fact, there is a lot for fans to be hopeful for, but before we can look forward, lets look back at the 2013-14 campaign that was.

What We Learned in 2013-14

We learned that last season was a year of growth, and there are a number of reasons why the Avalanche should continue to be successful. 

2013-14 was an amazing year for the Avalanche in which they jumped from being the second-worst team in the NHL to the third-best all over the course of a season. They were able to accomplish this because Nathan MacKinnon, Matt Duchene, Tyson Barrie and assorted others had breakout years.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JNZYAcJV6bc

At 18, MacKinnon was able to dominate competition, and he put up 63 points. He continued to be impressive during the playoffs, and he showed signs of becoming a future franchise player.

Duchene set a career high in points with 70 in 71 games, and better days are ahead for the spry 23-year-old pivot. Barrie finally emerged, and the 23-year-old rearguard tallied 38 points in only 64 contests.

In short, what we learned is that the youth of the Avalanche have what it takes to be successful, but they could use some help in other areas. Colorado addressed these areas during the summer, and they should impact the team's outlook for 2014-15.

2014-15 Outlook

Some of the moves made this summer by Colorado were questionable. Adding an aging Brad Stuart to the backend is a head scratcher, but the addition of Jarome Iginla and Daniel Briere adds some valuable playoff experience and intangibles.

Some may not agree with the Briere move, considering his age and how he played with the Montreal Canadiens last season. Some may say that dealing P.A. Parenteau for him was shortsighted. However, here is a projected depth chart for the upcoming season, and where could Parenteau realistically fit?

Left Wing	Center	Right Wing
Gabriel Landeskog	Matt Duchene	Ryan O'Reilly
Alex Tanguay	Nathan MacKinnon	Jarome Iginla
Jamie McGinn	Daniel Briere	Maxime Talbot
Patrick Bordeleau	John Mitchell	Jesse Winchester

You could make an argument for where he could go, but it seems clear that Joe Sakic and Patrick Roy have a method to their madness, and it involves more integration of youth over the next few seasons.

When it comes to the signing of Iginla, there are multiple facets to look at. No. 1 is Iginla's toughness and attitude. During the Avs series against the Minnesota Wild, they lacked the truculence and pugnacity needed to be successful in the Stanley Cup playoffs.

Iginla is a player who can help set a message, teach players how to better stand up for themselves and he will also add some offensive upside. Over the last five seasons, Iginla has scored tallied 35,32,43,14 and 30 goals in a season.

The 14-goal season automatically sticks out, but that was during the lockout-shortened season, and it was also a time in which Iginla was adjusting to life post Calgary Flames. This isn't an excuse for Iginla, but going from Calgary to Pittsburgh is a big change, especially when he was originally Boston bound.

While the situation in Colorado is different than Boston, don't expect Iginla's game to completely drop off. He may not score 30 goals, but putting him down for at least 20 is not a prognostication out of left field.

Ultimately Iginla is 37, and his best days are behind him. However, he can transition into life in the Rockies by being a veteran mentor and leader, and a complimentary winger.

If anything you can look for him to reignite some past chemistry with Alex Tanguay—a player whom Iginla lined up with during his best seasons—and for the Avs front office to inquire with the Flames about Craig Conroy's availability for the upcoming season.

That last bit was a joke, but the long story short is that Iginla should be able to pick up where he left off with Tanguay. 

The Avalanche are widely expected to regress to the mean this season according to the advanced stats community, but they should still be a playoff team this season. The Chicago Blackhawks and Dallas Stars will be two primary foes for Colorado this year, but they should be able to hang on for a third place spot in the Central Division.

Both the St. Louis Blues and Wild remain wildcards with their goaltending, and while the same could be said of the Avalanche, it is fair to believe that Semyon Varlamov wil be able to provide adequate goaltending this season.

The Russian netminder has spent six years in the league, and during his three years with both the Avs and the Washington Capitals, Varlamov has a .917 save percentage. If he can maintain that Colorado should be fine, and that is a realistic possibility given the makeup of the current roster.

Colorado may not be the 112-point team it was last year, but a 90-point year is very attainable.

One way or the other, summer seemed certain to usher in change in Denver. With a number of high-profile pending free agents and a desire to continue improving the team after a tremendously successful 2013-14 campaign, the Avalanche management group was busy both on the trade front and in unrestricted free agency.

The highlight was the signing of former Boston Bruins right wing Jarome Iginla, per ESPN.com's Pierre LeBrun.

But activity doesn't always translate to improvement, and it isn't at all clear that Colorado is a better team now than it was a few days ago.

Between trade and free agency, the team is essentially replacing four departing players with four others:

Departure	Average 82 games	Arrival	Average 82 games
Paul Stastny	24 goals, 59 points	Jarome Iginla	31 goals, 65 points
P.A. Parenteau	22 goals, 64 points	Daniel Briere	17 goals, 43 points
Brad Malone	6 goals, 14 points	Jesse Winchester	8 goals, 21 points
Andre Benoit	7 goals, 27 points	Brad Stuart	4 goals, 16 points

Average 82-game performance based on the last three seasons for each player.

The raw numbers don't look great, and in each case, the Avs added a player who was older than the one he was replacing on the roster.

Iginla is 37, as Briere will be early in October, and Stuart turns 35 in November. Those three key players are all in their twilight years and all reasonably high risks to fall off a performance cliff—though both Stuart and Briere are in the final years of their current deals, which minimizes risk.

Looking at the moves in more detail doesn't help matters much.

Colorado's exceptional depth at centre—Matt Duchene, Nathan MacKinnon, Ryan O'Reilly and John Mitchell can all play top-nine minutes at the position—means that subbing in a winger such as Iginla for Stastny isn't a problem positionally.

What does hurt is that Stastny played tougher minutes than Iginla—both saw a high quality of competition, but Iginla had a pile of offensive-zone starts, while Stastny generally started in the defensive zone—and drove possession, while Iginla relied heavily on finishing ability and had middling shot metrics.

Some might say "tomayto, tomahto," but Iginla's numbers are going to get worse if he isn't given the kind of favourable usage he had in Boston—and that means Stastny's defensive zone load will shift to someone else.

The loss of Stastny makes the departure of Parenteau uglier, too.

At five on five, the two were Colorado's top regular forwards in Corsi percentage. Moreover, when they were on the ice, the Avalanche scored 56.7 percent and 54.5 percent, respectively, of all goals tallied.

Newcomer Briere wasn't exactly a dud in Montreal, but he was basically treading water in terms of both goals and Corsi. He also slipped down the Canadiens' lineup in the postseason—it's difficult to understand why the Avs preferred him to Parenteau.

The net result is that Colorado moved two critical five-on-five pieces for a pair of players who are going to need to shoot the lights out because they aren't likely to win the shots battle.

On defence, the Avs made something of a name addition by trading for Stuart, but again, it isn't obvious that he's a big upgrade on the still-unsigned Andre Benoit.

Benoit played key minutes on defence, taking on second-pairing opponents and playing a role on both special teams. His underlying numbers hovered around the team average.

Stuart played similar minutes for much of the year in San Jose, and he underperformed compared to the team's totals. The Sharks were a better team, but even allowing for that, this is probably only a wash. Benoit also played power-play minutes, but Colorado should be able to replace those internally.

The only obvious upgrade is the move from Brad Malone to Jesse Winchester, and that's happening far enough down the lineup that its impact will be muted.

However, Colorado's biggest problem isn't that it seems to have downgraded in free agency.

Its biggest problem is that last year's results were fuelled by an uncanny shooting accuracy at five on five (8.8 percent at even strength, the second-best total in the NHL) and the brilliance of goalie Semyon Varlamov, who went from a miserable .903 save percentage to a brilliant .927 total.

Few teams can sustain a shooting percentage so far above the NHL average year over year, and if the Avalanche fail to, their goal totals will take a big hit.

Varlamov is almost certainly better than his 2012-13 .903 save percentage performance, but his career average is significantly lower than what he did in 2013-14. If he steps back toward his career average, Colorado is going to allow a lot more goals than it did last season.

How big of a drop are we talking? If Varlamov goes back to a career-average save percentage and the Avalanche shoot at an NHL-average rate in 2014-15 (the team's shooting percentage was below league averages in both 2011-12 and 2013 in five-on-five situations), the team would score 20 fewer goals and allow 21 more.

As the Avs only posted a plus-30 goal differential in 2013-14, a 41-goal drop would likely put them outside the playoffs in the competitive West next season.

Major improvements were needed over the summer. We haven't seen them yet.

Jonathan Willis covers the NHL for Bleacher Report. Follow him on Twitter for more of his work.

Statistics courtesy of NHL.com, ExtraSkater.com and CapGeek.com unless otherwise noted.

On the first day of NHL free agency, right winger Jarome Iginla reached an agreement with the Colorado Avalanche as his pursuit of the Stanley Cup continues.

Bob McKenzie of TSN passed along word of the deal:

Iginla, who spent a vast majority of his 17-year career with the Calgary Flames, has scored almost 600 goals and added 638 assists in nearly 1,400 games between the regular season and the playoffs.

Yet despite all of his individual success, he has never played on a team that hoisted the Cup. He came extremely close with the Flames at the end of the 2003-04 campaign, when Calgary went to Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Final before falling to the Tampa Bay Lightning.

His track record is terrific both as a player and a leader, but there will always be a missing piece on his resume if he fails to win perhaps the most storied trophy in sports.

He had joined the Pittsburgh Penguins and Boston Bruins, a pair of top contenders, over the past two seasons in search of a Cup. Though things still haven't fallen his way quite yet, it doesn't sound like he's ready to give up the chase.

After Boston's season ended, the veteran winger had already begun looking ahead to the new campaign, per Nicholas Goss of NESN:

I feel good, I love playing the game. I'd like to keep playing for a while longer and keep being effective. Not just playing, but putting pressure on myself to be a good player and help produce. I don't want to just play for playing. I still believe I can be a very good player.

The desire to be better and ultimately win is definitely burning. I'll be working hard this summer and can't wait to be playing again next season.

He scored 61 points, including 30 goals, this past season, so there's no doubt he can still be a productive member of a contending team. Chris Johnston of Rogers Sportsnet noted the continued strong play from the longtime star:

It's unclear how much longer Iginla will be able to perform at such a high level, but he's clearly motivated to keep playing. Combined with his wealth of experience, that makes him a very strong short-term investment, even if he doesn't net 30 goals.

He has only scored fewer than 20 goals once in his career while playing a full season. It would therefore be a surprise if he's anything less than a key offensive contributor once again. That includes strong work on the power play.

Again, his career won't be defined by whether he eventually wins the Stanley Cup. But it would definitely be a great way to cap off an otherwise outstanding career for the talented winger.

Now that he has signed with Colorado, he can focus on the Cup chase once more.