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Arizona Coyotes 2015 Opponents: Colorado Avalanche

By William Grigsby

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The Arizona Coyotes need to take advantage of games this season and we travel to Mile High City to see what’s in store against the Avalanche:

 Today we look at: Colorado Avalanche

2014-15 record: 39-31-12, 7th in the Central, Didn’t make the playoffs

How the Arizona Coyotes did: 3 games, 0-2-1

 Schedule this year against the Preds: Thur 11/5 Home,  Sun 12/27 at Colorado, Mon 3/7 at Colorado

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 Notable additions: C Carl Soderberg, D Nikita Zadorov, C Mikhail Grigorenko, D Francois Beauchemin, LW Blake Comeau

 Notable subtractions: C Ryan O’Reilly, LW Jamie McGinn, C Daniel Briere

Coached by: Patrick Roy (3rd season)

 Who’s in Net:

Starter Semyon Varlamov is a little hard to predict as he can be inconsistent. He was terrific short-handed with a .942 Save Pct. but only .916 even strength. He dipped a bit last year from his excellent previous year. The club is hoping for a bounce back. Reto Berra played under 20 games last year and will be the backup.

Quick thoughts about the Avalanche:

Their big addition over the summer was blue liner Francois Beauchemin who may help their toughness, but at a big price of $13.5 million over three years for a 35-year old?  That was the going price on opening day of the Free Agent frenzy, but they may have overpaid.

  • Blake Comeau and Mikhail Grigorenko were brought in to help all of the young talents on this team, and the offense should be on the upswing.
  • Their defense ranked 21st last year, and may not change much. They added defensive help, but lost center Ryan O’Reilly who was excellent not only on the penalty-kill, but he cleaned up his own zone at even strength too. Now, the Sabres have him, and his off-ice issues which go with him.
  • If all of their youngsters can make a nice jump, they will be on the edge of the playoffs. Their young talent has potential.

Why the Avalanche will win the Stanley Cup: 

They have a solid core of youngsters in Matt Duchene, Nathan MacKinnon,  Mikhail Grigorenko and Gabriel Landeskog  who will carry this team…but it might be a little too much to hope for this season.

Why the Avalanche won’t win the Stanley Cup: 

They are counting too much on Varlamov to carry them, and the youngsters to take over the void they will miss from O’Reilly. Relying on your goalie too much, like the Coyotes did last season can end in disaster.

Three Things We Like About You:

  1. If anyone in the West hates the Detroit Red Wings more than we do it might be Colorado. They had some, shall we say….interesting playoff matchups.
  2. We’ve had some pretty good matchups. Krys Kalanos scoring on Patrick Roy, and Roy breaking his stick in disgust was the most memorable.
  3. We love the Avalanche logo and even the Big Foot logo. That “A” with the swooping snow is really cool.

Three Things We Don’t Like About You:

  •  Those “Blueberry” uniforms rank right up there with the absolutely worst in the league.  I don’t know what you were thinking. You have had some really bad “uni’s” over the years.
  • We hate that you need to grow an extra lung to play in the extreme altitude of the mile high city. Compared to the desert you feel like you need an oxygen mask to play there.
  • There had to be a reason to put the Avalanche Ice Girls on display, but so far it’s hard to come up with one of them. Perhaps that the game is meant to be viewed by men only? That’s not marketing, that’s stupidity.

Prediction: If the Avalanche were playing in the East they might have a chance, but there is too much strength right now in the Western Conference.  The youth on this team would have to grow up overnight, and I don’t think the defense is good enough to carry them to the playoffs. Another long year at home, without a playoff game in sight.

Next: Arizona Coyotes Get Buried By Avalanche

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