A Look At Remaining UFA's: Who Should The Avs Sign/Condem To The KHL?

The Avs look like a pretty good team on paper. Ok, don’t look at the defense, that still needs work. More on that later. But as with any NHL team (yes Canucks fans, that means you, your team isn’t perfect so just stop it already) there are holes, and ways to improve. The NHL website recently released a list of the top remaining UFA’s. So let’s take a look, shall we, at the remaining top free agents left on the table, and we’ll see if they are worthy enough for the Avs to save from the KHL.

We’ll throw in Patrick Roy’s projected line combinations to help you judge where a certain player would be on the team:

• Ryan O’Reilly — Matt Duchene — P.A. Parenteau
• Gabe Landeskog — Paul Stastny — Alex Tanguay
• Jamie McGinn — Nathan MacKinnon — Steve Downie

Brendan Morrow, LW. We haven’t seen any Avs fans on Twitter, Facebook, or anywhere else, talk about how the Avs should sign the former Stars star. And you know what we think of that? Good call. Morrow would be useless on the Avs. He would be a 3^rd line guy at best and maybe play some powerplay time, but we have enough players like him that don’t want as much money, and haven’t been beaten up their whole careers. Morrow is still a great player, but only on teams that need a veteran guy who can play on the 2^nd line wing. Carolina, Florida, Edmonton, Calgary, and other really bad teams come to mind.

Vinny Prospal: LW. See above entry but just take out the fact that Morrow is still effective and a bad team can use him. Have fun in Europe Vinny, it’s been a slice!

Flip Kuba: D. The Avs need help on their blueline, that’s no secret to anyone. But is Kuba the right guy? No. he isn’t. but could he help? Yes he could. Here’s an idea Avs management, yes we’re talking to you too Joe Sakic, get rid of Hunwick, Sarich, Benoit, and Hejda, and bring in Kuba. He is an offensive minded guy, gifted passer, great at breakouts, an anchor on the powerplay, and just all around talented. Now, is he a Drew Doughty, Ryan Suter, or Kris Letang? No. but he would be a perfect replacement for Dime-A-Dozen Hejda on the 2^nd line D. And he will probably be pretty cheap.

Ron Hainsey: D. The Avs need a bit of a pick me up on D. Broken record much? But the Avs don’t need Ron Hainsey. Hainsey is like a miz between Erik Johnson and Ryan Wilson except with way less skill and ability. So really, as much as he would fit in on our backend because of that, we should just leave him standing in the unemployment line. Go get him Oilers!

Simon Gagne: LW. Would you like a really talented 1^st or 2^nd line winger that is always top five in league scoring, is healthy as a horse, has blistering speed, a great shot, and good hands? Then jump in your time machine and go get Simon Gagne in 2006. Next!

Ilya Bryzgalov, G. Something tells me these guys are unemployed for a reason. Its obvious why Bryz wouldn’t fit in with the Avs. He isn’t any good anymore, hes getting old, he’ll be making a ton of money of the geniuses in Flyer land nd still want a huge paycheck, because he’s Russian (yea we went there. Russian player rant coming soon as well), and Varlamov os our guy. Period. We were going to do a “why you hef to be” joke but we instead opted for less popular “your momma joke”. Hey Ilya, Your momma is so Russian, that when Stalin…no nevermind this isn’t going to be appropriate. Have fun watching the Olympics on your TV.

Damien Brunner: RW. The only use Brunner would have on the Avs is if after every tough loss, they tied him up like a piñata in his old Wings jersey and beat him with plaster molds of Claude Lemieux’s arms.  

So there you have it. One player is deemed good enough by us and our expertise to don an Avs jersey for this season. Do you agree? Disagree? There is always the option for RFA offer sheets to guys like Franson and Pietrangelo, but Sakic doesn’t seem like a lowballing screw up likeJay Feaster.

A Numbers Game: #13

By Kevin Goff
@BrgBrigadeKevin

Well, when I first suggested about writing the piece for #13 with the Colorado Avalanche, I was certain I'd find a few more names than there actually are. Going back to when the Colorado Avalanche were the Quebec Nordiques, a grand total of three people have ever donned jersey number 13. Since moving to Colorado, there have only been two, so this makes it a little interesting, especially since you can't really say that either of them were the worst.

The Best:Valeri Kamensky. When the Avalanche first came to Denver, Kamensky might have been one of the most overlooked stars on that heavily loaded team. Everybody knew about Joe Sakic and Peter Forsberg. But then the Avalanche added Claude Lemieux and acquired Sandis Ozolinsh early on in the season. Add in the big trade for Patrick Roy and you're barely even thinking about Kamensky. 

Don't forget though, during that 1995 -1996 year, Kamensky had career highs in goals assists and points. He had 38 goals and 47 assists for 85 points. He also had 10 goals and 12 assists for 22 points in that year's run to the playoffs where everybody was overshadowed by Joe Sakic's domination. Kamensky had a deceptively huge shot, great hands and immense skill. 

I had the good fortune of being able to interview Kamensky when I was writing with Bleacher Report a few years back where I got the chance to reminisce about winning the Stanley Cup. Truly an awesome experience. 

The Worst: By process of elimination, the only other 13 for the Colorado Avalanche was Dan Hinote. I wouldn't want to refer to him as the worst anything, though, as he was a very useful player on Colorado's 2001 Stanley Cup Championship team. He was a fast, physical, wrecking ball of a player that could show some offensive flash from time to time. A great character guy that knew his role and performed it very well, but didn't have nearly the kind of talent that Valeri Kamensky had. So, rather than call him "The Worst", perhaps he is just "The Second" number 13. 

There really isn't an irrelevant 13, but if you want to go that way, we can call Mats Sundin, who was the only other player in the franchise to wear 13, this one since he wore it while he was a member of the Quebec Nordiques.

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