Grave Considerations: The 2017-2018 Colorado Avalanche

The Colorado Avalanche were just eliminated from the Stanley Cup Playoffs last night, losing their first round series with the Nashville Predators 4 games to 2. I want to take a few minutes and reflect on their season.

In our house, we love hockey. Over the course of our life together, I’ve managed to transform my wife from someone who had no sports knowledge or interest at all into someone who has a wealth of hockey knowledge and actively participates in being a fan with me. I find this to be fair, as she has instill in me her love of RuPaul’s Drag Race, and we often have in-depth conversations about drag queens. We are a Chicago Blackhawks household, living in Chicago and all, and we bandwagon or are moderately serious fans of other teams as well: Winnipeg, Boston, San Jose. We’ve assembled a pretty strong wardrobe of hockey jerseys, thanks in pretty large part to the changeover from Reebok to Adidas making them much more affordable. But I, and by extension my wife, have always loved the Avalanche, and I will spare you all of the old man tales and graduation night triple overtime excitement stories, at least for this entry.

Let me say a few things about the 2017-2018 Avalanche, now that their season has ended.

I don’t want to get all statistical about things, as this is basically just about the team and stuff, not like ABOUT the team. A year ago, the Avalanche were historically bad, posting a dismal record following the abrupt departure of all time legendary goalie but total bust coach Patrick Roy in the late summer. In came Jared Bednar (who?) at the last minute, taking a team that should have been passable but instead underachieved and just plain stunk all season. They drafted fourth overall, landing a defenseman who immediately went to the minors, and added Nail Yakupov, Jonathan Bernier, and Colin Wilson in the 2017 offseason.  Rumors swirled concerning the trade of Matt Duchene, a long time Av who had never really lived up to his potential or promise, for the last months of the 2017 season and into the summer and into the start of the 2017-2018 season. Not exactly a real confidence boosting summer.

Then, some crazy stuff happened. The new season began. The Avs picked up defenseman Patrick Nemeth off waivers. They pulled off a three team trade for Duchene which brought primarily defenseman Samuel Girard and some picks, as well as a couple other guys, one of whom has potential. Nathan MacKinnon got himself into the race for the Hart trophy. They won ten games in a row from December 2017 to January 2018, and were in the Wild Card race for months. They had some injuries but never imploded. Then, in the last game of the year, they beat the St. Louis Blues to clinch the eighth playoff spot in the Western Conference. Then, they’d win two games against the President’s Trophy winning Predators, and would be competitive in three others, only the Game 6 5-0 blowout serving as a poor mark. They were maybe thirty seconds of empty net time away from tying another game, one busted play and some Nashville hustle being the difference if everything else stayed the same as it happened.

As disappointing as it is to see them eliminated, there’s really nothing to be unhappy about.

But, the fact that their season is over is personally upsetting, because of what the Avalanche provided me from October until Sunday night.

Watching Avs games is always fun. I LOVE their announce team, every single member. Kyle Keefe and the bizarrely impish Mark Rycroft in the studio, Mike Haynes and loveable old goof Peter McNab on the ice, and Lauren Gardner doing interviews; what an awesome team. They are fun, and they look like they’re having fun, which makes for a fun viewing experience. Two of my favorite memories from this season were the game against the Islanders, the game when Matt Duchene was pulled after one shift because he had been traded to the Ottawa Senators during the game, when McNab told this rambling story about when he was a player and most NHL players were American or Canadian; but now, some guys are Russian and some guys are Swedish and some guys are Finns. I loudly proclaimed that to be the worst hockey story I’d ever heard. My other favorite memory was tweeting with the Mile High Hockey account about some crazy rant Rycroft had gone on between periods, and how sometimes it seems like someone spiked Rycroft’s drink and got him extra strange.

But the actual team was also fun this season. They played hard every game, even when they were outmatched. I think the best game of the season was a November loss to the Tampa Bay Lightning. The Avs were down like 5-0 and came back to lose 6-5. But at that time, Tampa was the run-away best team in the league, and Colorado was still figuring it out, and that 5-0 score probably should have held up easily. But the Avs didn’t pack it in. They played hard and nearly won. That was something that could be expected of the team as the season rolled along: they were always going to play. Sure, they lost three of their last four games on the season, and really did bumble their way through late March, but they won a game when it counted and made the playoffs.

But the Avs were fun, fun in a time that is still filled with daily crushing bullshit. Avs games became that escape from reality that I was really in desperate need of, but can’t seem to find anywhere else at the moment. Watching Avs games made me happy, no matter what point in the season it was: sitting on our (now former) couch at our (old) apartment, my wife usually not really paying attention and our cat sleeping or playing, Avs games were family time. I would look at my wife practically every game and ask her if we were going to do this at our new apartment. She’d always say yes, but she didn’t really know how serious of a question that was. And, in truth, we are still doing that sort of thing at our new place, but it was important to me that I have some kind of reassurance. The Avs were fun this year: not only their announce team, and not only the team, but the whole package. Watching Avs games reminded me of our trip to Colorado in the winter of 2016, arguably the last time that the world felt right to me, and a time that I constantly pine for or think back to. It is an excursion that I constantly find myself reminiscing over, wishing we could relive it over and over again, but knowing that such things are one-offs, and even if we went back, we would never go back that time, but that never stops me from wanting.

The Avs also play hockey right. They play physical, and they play fast, but they play . . . nice? Is that the word I want? In a time where some teams really are overly dickish (Nashville, although overall I’ve got no issue with them) or are flat out dirty (Anaheim), it’s nice to have a team that plays well and plays hard but isn’t extracurricularly assholeish. I hate that instigating, “get under their skin” kind of stuff”: nothing wrong with being physical, and nothing really wrong with fighting in the game. But get rid of the irritators and agitators. That stuff is chump bullshit. I’m sure if your team is doing that and winning, it’s something that you can overlook. I love a good, hard hockey hit, even if it’s against my team. That’s the game. But keep your cheap stuff and idiocy in your pocket.   

Avs games this season were something to look forward to, as for the first time in a while, they were competitive and always had something to play for. It wasn’t certain they’d make the playoffs at any point in time, so there was always space for optimism as well as for doubt and nerves. When February came around, the announce team was going out of their way to try and let fans down easy, as a few other teams were making pushes for Colorado’s Wild Card spot and there was some worry that those teams, who had playoff experience and were generally stronger teams, would probably jump Colorado for their spot. Not to say that Colorado is or was a weak of bad team, but they were not thought to have the horses to pull them over the finish line, while a team like St. Louis or Dallas (the latter of which hasn’t really proven anything in terms of playoff success, but whatevs) would be able to mount a late season march. It almost happened with St. Louis, but then the Little Team That Could beat the Blues and won more first round playoff games than the other three eliminated teams combined (2, believe it or not). But the current iteration of the Avs’ fan base is not used to playoffs or even winning seasons, and the amount of excitement that was building around the team seemed to be gaining wild momentum all while being pretty fragile: I think they wanted to get fans ready, especially newer or younger fans, for the potential collapse, so that this enthusiasm wouldn’t be dissipated by missing the postseason when it’s pretty clear that there are more good days ahead for the team. As if “I got my hopes up for nothing” would be enough to chase fans away when October and the new season comes. I’d hope not, and as a longtime hockey fan, and Blackhawks and Avalanche fan, I know that a bad season doesn’t mean that they will be crap forever. But I’ve been a Hawks fan most of my life, and was a Nordiques fan before they moved, so I’m accustomed to flashes of goodness being ultimately in vain, but that not being enough to run me off for the future.

And it was a rollercoaster of a team. One night they would blow San Jose out and the next they’d barely hang on against Buffalo and the next, they’d lose to Arizona before coming from behind to beat Vancouver and then getting blown out by Vegas. Up and down and up and down and up and down. But they were always fun. Sometimes, it sounded like even the announcers were stunned at what they were seeing. I distinctively remember a game against the Sharks where the Avs jumped out to an early lead they would never relinquish, and Mike Haynes sounded truly shocked that the Avs were piling on. I remember him saying that San Jose was a good team, which is true, but he said it in this fashion that betrayed his thought that the Sharks should have rolled over the Avs, but couldn’t.

For next season, I hope they bring back some of the guys they took fliers on this season. I like Nail Yakupov, and I’d like to have him come back. He’s the kind of guy I think you need on a team that has young stars like MacKinnon and emerging young talent like Kerfoot and Jost and Rantanen. I liked a lot of what Patrick Nemeth did most of the year, even though he bumbled around in the playoffs too much. I’d like them to get Tyson Barrie an extension, but not to break the bank or hamstring themselves to do it. There’s a pair of apparently otherworldly D-men in the minors right now, in the form of Cale Maker and Connor Timmons, so Barrie may end up being expendable if the situation isn’t right, or if the right one arises tradewise. Barrie is going to be the next Duchene, with his name dangled out there as tradebait until it becomes unbearable. Coach Jared Bednar was just given a year extension yesterday, the day after the playoffs ended, and that was the right thing to do. This year was a good start, and there is a lot to build on. Now we just have to hope that they do, and that this year wasn’t an aberration, like the 2013-2014 team that fell into first place in the Western Conference before bowing out in seven against Minnesota, and then fell right into the toilet for four more years.

And that was 2100 words. 2100 words of or for what? I don’t know. For a feeling that things were alright, a few hours a night, a couple nights a week. A feeling of hope for the future of a team I love? Nah, more for the first part. The Avs this season made me happy; they made me feel like things were ok, when work was hell and the news was worse. As I watched the third period of the Game 6 loss to Nashville tick away, I felt sad not at the loss but at the end of the season. It was a good season, but it made me happy, like a deep inside happy, that is all-too-rare these days. I hate to be cliché, but this season is a real “don’t cry because it’s over; smile because it happened” sort of thing (ugh). But the smiles at what happened are already being replaced by that bittersweet feel of memory, and knowing that it’s over is giving me this longing for what is now past. Hopefully next season brings this magical feeling back with it.