On a lazy Sunday morning, instead of Mr Pibb and Red Vines, I give you something decidedly less crazy and delicious - the Avs' 2nd-half splits:
| G | A | P | PT | +/- | PiM | PPG | |
| Ryan Smyth | 31 | 13 | 16 | 29 | - 5 | 20 | 0.94 |
| Milan Hejduk | 31 | 12 | 11 | 23 | - 9 | 8 | 0.74 |
| Marek Svatos | 30 | 8 | 10 | 18 | - 7 | 6 | 0.60 |
| Wojtek Wolski | 31 | 4 | 12 | 16 | - 6 | 6 | 0.52 |
| Chris Stewart | 30 | 7 | 6 | 13 | - 17 | 38 | 0.43 |
| Tyler Arnason | 26 | 3 | 9 | 12 | - 7 | 2 | 0.46 |
| Cody McLeod | 28 | 7 | 5 | 12 | - 4 | 60 | 0.43 |
| T.J. Hensick | 23 | 2 | 6 | 8 | - 7 | 0 | 0.35 |
| Ben Guite | 24 | 2 | 5 | 7 | + 2 | 18 | 0.29 |
| Paul Stastny | 11 | 1 | 4 | 5 | - 5 | 6 | 0.45 |
| Darcy Tucker | 26 | 3 | 2 | 5 | - 8 | 22 | 0.19 |
| Ian Laperriere | 25 | 3 | 2 | 5 | - 4 | 42 | 0.20 |
| Cody McCormick | 20 | 0 | 4 | 4 | - 4 | 49 | 0.20 |
| Brian Willsie | 24 | 1 | 2 | 3 | - 7 | 6 | 0.13 |
| David Jones | 3 | 2 | 1 | 3 | + 2 | 0 | 1.00 |
| Joe Sakic | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | E | 0 | |
| Matt Hendricks | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | E | 2 | 0.00 |
| Philippe Dupuis | 3 | 0 | 0 | 0 | - 1 | 0 | 0.00 |
| Chris Durno | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | E | 0 | 0.00 |
| T.J. Galiardi | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | - 3 | 0 | 0.00 |
Just two forwards with a +/- in the black...which is two more than the blueliners (I'm skipping Leopold and Nycholat):
| G | A | P | PT | +/- | PiM | PPG | |
| John-Michael Liles | 26 | 5 | 12 | 17 | - 11 | 11 | 0.65 |
| Ruslan Salei | 29 | 3 | 8 | 11 | - 5 | 42 | 0.38 |
| Scott Hannan | 31 | 0 | 6 | 6 | - 9 | 16 | 0.19 |
| Brett Clark | 31 | 0 | 5 | 5 | - 14 | 10 | 0.16 |
| Adam Foote | 12 | 1 | 2 | 3 | - 5 | 12 | 0.25 |
| Daniel Tjarnqvist | 24 | 0 | 1 | 1 | - 2 | 2 | 0.04 |
| Derek Peltier | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | - 1 | 0 | 0.00 |
| Kyle Cumiskey | 3 | 0 | 0 | 0 | E | 0 | 0.00 |
| Michael Vernace | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | - 1 | 2 | 0.00 |
And let's not exclude the goalies from the fun:
| GP | W | L | OT | GAA | GA | SA | SV | SV% | TOI | SO | |
| Peter Budaj | 17 | 6 | 9 | 1 | 3.31 | 52 | 435 | 383 | 0.880 | 943.7 | 0 |
| Andrew Raycroft | 16 | 4 | 11 | 0 | 3.53 | 54 | 465 | 411 | 0.884 | 918.7 | 0 |
Looking above, Ryan Smyth is clearly the guy setting the pace for the Avs this year in the 2nd half. What I want to know is how the 2nd half compares to the first. Here's a look at the 23 players with games in both (again, skipping Leopold and Nycholat) and how their PPG (points per game) rate has change from the first half to the 2nd half:
| 1st Half GP | 2nd Half GP | PPG Ch | |
| David Jones | 37 | 3 | 0.73 |
| Cody McLeod | 41 | 28 | 0.26 |
| Ryan Smyth | 41 | 31 | 0.23 |
| Tyler Arnason | 40 | 26 | 0.21 |
| John-Michael Liles | 39 | 26 | 0.17 |
| Marek Svatos | 34 | 30 | 0.16 |
| Scott Hannan | 40 | 31 | 0.14 |
| Ruslan Salei | 39 | 29 | 0.12 |
| Chris Stewart | 16 | 30 | 0.12 |
| Adam Foote | 30 | 12 | 0.12 |
| Ben Guite | 16 | 24 | 0.04 |
| Brian Willsie | 10 | 24 | 0.03 |
| Milan Hejduk | 41 | 31 | 0.01 |
| Kyle Cumiskey | 3 | 3 | 0.00 |
| Philippe Dupuis | 5 | 3 | 0.00 |
| T.J. Hensick | 28 | 23 | -0.01 |
| Brett Clark | 41 | 31 | -0.01 |
| Wojtek Wolski | 40 | 31 | -0.06 |
| Cody McCormick | 25 | 20 | -0.08 |
| Darcy Tucker | 30 | 26 | -0.11 |
| Ian Laperriere | 39 | 25 | -0.13 |
| Daniel Tjarnqvist | 13 | 24 | -0.19 |
| Paul Stastny | 34 | 11 | -0.46 |
That's a very interesting list. You can throw out Jones and his 3 games. That leaves you with McLeod, Smyth, Arnason, Svatos and Stewart having significant scoring rate improvements in the 2nd half. If you just started singing "one of these things is not like the others" you aren't alone, but before we extend the effort to pull Arnason out from under the bus, let's remember that he isn't exactly tearing up the 2nd half (his 2nd half PPG rate would give him just 37 points in 82 games); Arnason is no doubt helped by his dismal 1st half (10 points in 40 games).
Liles and Salei are really the two defensemen who've made an improvement in the 2nd half. Foote and Hannan are on that list as well, but each were dreadful offensively in the 1st half (2 points), and aren't exactly going to be confused for Paul Coffey now.
And that brings us to the 2nd half faders: Tucker, Lappy, Tjarmin and, yes, the prodigal son. It's just 11 2nd-half games, but that last line is a little disconcerting, no? Really, the other 2nd half drops aren't very substantial (an errant assist probaly would have removed any of those guys from the list), but Stastny's will be very important if it continues.