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Last Year Opening Night Roster vs This Year's Squad


With the Avalanche finally announcing their final preseason roster moves (which we covered...uh, twice), I thought it would be interesting to look at the changes between the 2011 opening night roster and the team we opened up 2010 with (excluding the IR but including nacho nabbers). As a reminder, we have all the reports from the 2010-2011 season in one handy page. Well, it's handy to me at least.

Obviously, the Avs have completely revamped the goalie department, dumping Budaj and Body Language while adding Varly and getting Giggy with it. I won't spend much any time breaking the goalies down. The Avs will be better between the pipes or else they will be totally screwed.

Up front, the Avalanche have 9 forwards on the active roster that were there against Chicago last October. There vital stats are below.

 

 

Age Ht Wt GP G A Pt Pt/G PiM
Duchene 19 69 200 80 27 40 67 0.84 33
Porter 24 72 190 74 14 11 25 0.34 27
Stastny 24 72 205 74 22 35 57 0.77 56
Winnik 25 72 210 80 11 15 26 0.33 35
O'Reilly 19 72 200 74 13 13 26 0.35 16
Galiardi 22 74 190 35 7 8 15 0.43 12
McLeod 26 74 210 71 5 3 8 0.11 189
Hejduk 34 72 190 71 22 34 56 0.79 18
Jones 26 74 210 77 27 18 45 0.58 28

 

Here's the 4 guys who were on last year's opening night roster but aren't on the active roster now

 

Age Ht Wt GP G A Pt Pt/G PiM
Olver 22 70 170 18 2 7 9 0.50 18
Dupuis 25 72 196 74 6 11 17 0.23 40
Yip 25 73 195 71 12 10 22 0.31 54
Stewart 22 74 228 62 28 25 53 0.85 53

 

Those 4 players have been replaced by the 5 guys below (the Avalanche only carried 22 players at the start of last season):

 

Age Ht Wt GP G A Pt Pt/G PiM
Landeskog 18 73 204 0 0 0 0 0.00 0
Kobasew 29 72 192 63 9 7 16 0.25 19
Lindstrom 27 72 187 0 0 0 0 0.00 0
McClement 28 73 205 80 7 13 20 0.25 30
Mueller 23 74 205 0 0 0 0 0.00 0

 

Essentially, you can break this down as swapping Kobasew and McClement for Yip and Dupuis. Decent trade. Then you drop Olver for Lindstrom. Hard to say; probably even but likely not a big deal either way. Finally, you lose Chris Stewart and replace him with Landeskog and Mueller. Way, way too early to call this one...especially since neither Landeskog or Mueller played a minute in the NHL last year.

Statistically, the 2011-2012 Avalanche forwards look similar on the whole to the 2010-2011 Avalanche. They are a year older (amazing), but are roughly the same size. Subjectively, the Avs lose some toughness and guaranteed scoring output, but increase their skill level a bit.

 

Age Ht Wt GP G A Pt Pt/G PiM
2010-2011 24.1 72.3 199.5 861 196 230 426 0.49 579
2011-2012 25.2 72.5 199.9 779 164 197 361 0.46 463

 

On defense, there are two players returning from opening night: Ryan Wilson and Kyle Quincey.

 

Age Ht Wt GP G A Pt Pt/G PiM
Quincey 25 74 207 21 0 1 1 0.05 18
Wilson 23 73 207 67 3 13 16 0.24 68

 

First, our 2010 opening night D-men:

 

Age Ht Wt GP G A Pt Pt/G PiM
Liles 29 70 185 76 6 40 46 0.61 14
Holos 23 71 196 39 0 6 6 0.15 10
Cumiskey 23 70 185 18 1 7 8 0.44 10
Hannan 31 73 225 78 1 10 11 0.14 34
Foote 39 74 220 47 0 8 8 0.17 33

 

They've been replaced by these goliaths

 

Age Ht Wt GP G A Pt Pt/G PiM
O'Byrne 27 77 234 67 0 10 10 0.15 71
O'Brien 28 75 230 80 2 7 9 0.11 83
Hunwick 26 69 190 73 1 12 13 0.18 25
Hejda 33 76 237 77 5 15 20 0.26 28
Johnson 23 76 232 77 8 21 29 0.38 56

 

Obviously, as Andi has already pointed out, the shiny new Avalanche D is way, way bigger than the old and busted Avalanche D. These guys are, in a word, freakinggargantuaninareallybigwaydude.

 

Age Ht Wt GP G A Pt Pt/G PiM
2010-2011 27.6 72.1 203.6 346 11 85 96 0.28 187
2011-2012 26.7 74.3 219.6 462 19 79 98 0.21 349

 

Unfortunately, collectively and individually, they are even more offensively-challenged than last year's squad and waaay more prone to taking penalties. Which would probably be okay if the Avalanche had a potent offense (just 4-players who cracked 40 points last year) and something more competent than the league's worst PK last year.

What's my point in all of this bury-the-lead gobbledygook? The bottom line is that the Avalanche haven't really changed all that much up front but are a totally different squad from the blueline back. And it's not just different personnel, but a whole new philosophy, changing from the little speed demons to the big bad behemoths. There's no way to tell how this is going to work in real life...so let's bring on those damn Red Wings and kick the tires on this damn thing!