Eurolanche

Sherman's masterpiece (part 1)

In the first part I will focus on goaltenders. The two parts to follow will consist of defense and offense  analysis. They will appear on the Eurolanche website next week.

Okay, I admit I may have exaggerated  with the title. But I still think that the team rebuilding we witnessed in last three Colorado seasons is example of how it should be done. Thought-out, patient, step by step. General manager Greg Sherman and his team earned my respect.

The path they’ve chosen three years ago was challenging, required long term planning and a lot of patience and will – we, the fans, are impatient by nature and would like to see the results and achievements immediately. Despite that, Sherman and his team haven’t yielded, they sticked with the plan even though it many times required hard, unpopular and by fans often criticized decisions (favourite players leaving).

Nowdays we can finally tell it began to bear fruit. The fruit in this case would be young and talented core of the team with huge potential and perspective to become one of the best in the league in near future. Let’s try to recapitulate the proces of it’s creation and forecast what could be the next Avs management steps.

The Goal

Goaltending post is crucial for each team. A fact well known to Greg Sherman after he took over the place of Francois Giguere in 2009. Goaltending duo Peter Budaj – Andrew Raycroft gained us (with their performances in the net) 3rd draft pick in first round that season (of course it wasn’t only goaltenders fault but they had a lot to do with it).

So it was obvious that improving the quality in the net was Shermans highest priority. It resulted into signing two year contract with unrestricted free agent Craig Anderson from Florida Panthers. This signing proved to be the bet on the right horse almost immediately when Anderson set some new franchise records (number of victories in October, number of consecutive starts in the beginning of the season) early in the 2009/2010 season. Even though his performance didn’t persisted the whole season, in the end he had a huge concern in Avalanche‘s last appearance in the playoffs where he has again proven his reliability in the series with San Jose (51 saves shutout in 1-0 game in the third match of the series).

Successfull season has filled the fans with optimism and practically noone has doubted that Anderson will stay our reliable number one for years to come. But as we all know this story has ended unhappily for many reasons and after unsatisfying performances caused by displeasure with discussions about new contract (or vice-versa?) we have been more or less forced to trade Anderson to Ottawa for Brian Elliot. Neither him has shown satisfying performance (Avs played really awful as a team though) in the rest of the season and so, in summer 2011, we’ve been practically in the same spot as two years ago – without satisfyingly sorted goaltending.

Discussions with Tomas Vokoun haven’t ended with signing and so Greg Sherman decided to go more radical – gaving up the picks in first and second round for young russian Semyon Varlamov who he supported with free agent and experienced veteran Jean-Sebastian Giguere.

With most of the season behind us it appears to be a good move. Of course you can argue if the price wasn’t too high but Semyon, except some up and downs (understanded cause of his young age) during the season, has shown a great deal of talent, character (gaining team respect by handling his loss of no.1 position to Giguere) and also big potential to the future. Giguere, except for being mentor and teacher for Varlamov, is having a great season once again. In the hard phases of the season he supported the team with his excellent performances and became the natural and respected team leader.

It appears that Avs don’t have to worry about the goaltending for a while now. The biggest goaltending talent among prospects – almost 20 years old Calvin Pickard – should be ready to go into senior AHL team in the future season and soon it could be him who will replace Giguere in the no.2 goaltending spot.