New Beginning

After last trade we know more. Emotions fall down a little bit and we can begin to analyze new situation.

Defencemen. First we already have our Big D. There is very, very small market in that departement and it seems Erik Johnson is one of them or maybe has the potential to be one of the best defenseman in this league and that was our goal. So besides Lidstrom, Keith, Doughty, Weber and maybe Edler, Yandle, Chara, Burns or Letang our new defenseman have all the tools to be constant Norris Trophy consideration. I also think trading away Kevin Shattenkirk will not hurt our team. He has great talent but never will be defensive threat and is undersized. In our system we have at least two players who could fill his role in the near future, maybe even next season. I think about Stefan Elliott (he is over 6`) and silver medalist Tyson Barrie. Our defense could look much better next season in all area, especially in defensive area and in power play. Next step could be signing free agent - good shut-down, experienced defenceman (Philips, Brewer, Bieksa or Hamrlik). Adding Erik Johnson, Ryan O`Byrne (size we need), healthy Kyle Quincey, offensive minded Johny Pocket Liles, Elliott or Barrie and as a depth Cameron Gaunce we have nice combination of size, shut-down and offense.

Forwards. First I could not believe that we trade Chris Stewart. Now we lack true power forward but I think nowadays it is much easier to find nice power forward than nice defenceman. So we have to try to acquire power forward either via trade or via free agency. I would try to trade our draft picks to teams with salary-cap-problems or trade for undesirabled Phil Kessel or Dustin Penner. And don`t forget about Stewart`s defensive and consistency issues. When we talking about this aspects I think Avs staff seem to remember that champions or championship contenders have a lot of good two-way players (Chicago, Boston, Vancouver or Detroit). Adding McClement gives us another decent shutdown player and his faceoff abilities could improve team-defense. I always think that trading away O`Reilly, Winnik, Galiardi or McCleod is not good idea and could deteriorate our not-the-best team defense.

Goalies. It happend. We don`t have no 1 goalie. Again. But we don` t have it all season long. Anderson gone. And we could stop considering wheter he discover his form or not. For Avalanche he was one-year-wonder. That`s it. We have to improve in this departement and I think it will happen in the off-season by trading for one of the young goalie who now must backup his older pal (Bernier from LA, Schneider from Canucks or Rask from Bruins). We only can use draft picks and/or prospects to get one of them.

Given all this things and the fact we have no defence our staff have to find missing pieces. And last trade could be new beginning.