DENVER, Co – The Colorado Avalanche have been relatively quiet this offseason, so far, but two areas in which Colorado struggled last season were defense and goaltending. A healthy Semyon Varlamov can be effective. When he is, he can produce save percentages over 92%. It would be a healthy Varlamov and a revamped defense that will be of the greatest help to the club.
You can already hear the angry emails and comments now. “But what about the lack of goal scoring? How are you going to win if you can’t score?”
Hold on, let’s get to that. While watching the Avs over last few seasons, the lack of goal scoring wasn’t due to lack of talent. The top goal scorers: Gabriel Landeskog, Matt Duchene, and Mikko Rantanen, all finished the season at or below the 20 goal mark. All three took less than 200 shots apiece on the season. Landeskog had the most at 169.
Comparing that to a year before, all three of those players met or surpassed the before mentioned 20 goal mark. Duchene even tallied a career high 30 goals during the 2015-2016 season. That’s a 12 goal decrease in production for Duchene, who only had 18 goals last year.
The top offensive producers for Colorado can improve in the 2017-18 season. Jusso Valimaki would help open up that scoring by giving the Avalanche another legitimate threat from the point. Last season, Valimaki recorded 19 goals and 42 assists in 60 games with the Tri-City Americans. To complement this offensive production is a respectable size, measuring in at 6-foot-2 tall and 204 pounds.
Right now, the Avs top defensive goal scorer is Tyson Barrie who had 7 goals last season. Even if Valimaki were to be limited to half of his goal production from the WHL (8 goals) he would have led the Avalanche defensemen.
So the talk has focused the need for a defenseman and it would be easy to get stuck spouting offensive stats. Well, outside of being able to score, Valimaki’s size will allow him to clear out traffic from in front of the net. His plus/minus last season was +2 which could have led the entire Avalanche team where last season the team leaders in plus/minus Sven Andrighetto and J.T. Compher were even.
For those who are still unconvinced that there is a need for defense in Colorado, PHN sees the need to draft a defenseman in the first round. While scoring is exciting to watch, it is defense (and goaltending) that wins championships.
“With the fourth pick in the 2017 NHL Entry Draft, the Colorado Avalanche select, Jusso Valimaki of the Western Hockey League.”
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