Thanks to everyone who submitted a list of the Top 19 Avalanche Players Of All Time, especially to Rick Sadowski, Adrian Dater and Terry Frei, who risked all journalistic credibility just by replying to a lowly blogger's email. I hear that pantslessness, though not technically a word according to my spell check, is highly contagious.
Anyway, I tossed all the lists into an Excel spreadsheet and averaged the rankings. For those of you who did not provide a complete list, or ordered it in some fashion other than a simple 1-19 hierarchy, your choices were a little harder to tabulate. So I weighted the guys you chose in a slightly different way. But who cares about all the technical crap? All that matters is that the final result was a pretty good consensus of the lists you provided.
Now, I'm not going to share the list yet. I'm going to reveal the Top 19 one at a time, in a series of profile posts starting at 19 and working up to number 1. As for the timing of the posts, the draft is at the end of this week and free agency begins in twelve days, so there's no easy way to continuously post without some interruptions. So I won't try. I'll just start at the beginning of next week and try to do at least one a day. When free agency interrupts, we'll take a break from the rankings and then resume once the insanity of early July dies down. Besides, it will let me fill some dead time in the off-season.
One final note, each player profile will include their highest and lowest rankings from the complete lists I received, as well as their average "score." And just so you're aware, the final list is not exactly the same as the rankings produced through the averages---I took the liberty of moving a player or two up a spot and a player or two down a spot. I don't think anyone will disagree too much, but if you do, you'll just have to live with it. Sorry.
Like I said, the profiles will start next week and continue on until I've profiled all 19. Act excited!