Team: 2020-21 Colorado Avalanche

Initial Creation Date: Jan. 19, 2021

Published: Jan. 29, 2021

Salary Cap Mode: Basic

The Avs are a great team. But I think they have another gear that they havent hit yet. I think shuffling the lines around a bit will help them.

Landeskog-Mackinnon-Rantanen was an excellent line, but I think it would be best if the Avs split up Rantanen with Mackinnon. This is to give Mackinnon more room on the ice, and to give Rantanen more touches. Nichushkin is a really effective forechecker and will get the puck to Mackinnon. Landeskog does that to some extent, but nowhere near as good as Nuke. Putting them together would bring out the very best in both of them. In fact Mackinnon-Nichushkin had the best xGF% out of any Avs player that was paired with Mack last year. They didnt play very much together last year, but were absolutely deadly when paired together.

Burakovsky-Kadri-Rantanen will be the shooting line. They will get a ton of pucks on net and will probably dominate possession as one of the best 2nd lines in the league.

Saad-Compher-Jost is a good 3rd line. Saad is an excellent play driver, Compher and Jost are good defensively. Calvert is out, Which leaves Bellemare and Donskoi on the 4th line. Playing with 11F, 7D gives them the opportunity to get Mackinnon out for a couple extra shifts.

Toews-Makar has been a fantastic pair, however I think that pairing Makar with another 4th overall pick in Bowen Byram will make them unstoppbable. Byram-Makar has an xGF% of 92.82 which is absolutely bonkers. Yes there is a very small sample, but out of all defense pairs to play 15 mins so far this year, this pair is 1st and its not even close. The pair that is in 2nd has a xGF% of 78.38% which is still great, but not close to Byram-Makar. Toews-Makar has been really good, they rank 10th in xGF% with 70.21.

Toews-Girard. A great 2nd pair that can move the puck effectively and is good defensively. You could move Toews up to the first pair and Byram to the 2nd, I would be okay with that.

Graves-Pateryn. This a good shutdown pair. Graves did get carried by makar last year. It was a pretty big fluke imo. But hes still a serviceable defenseman, maybe not as good as the numbers showed last year. Greg Pateryn from 2016-2019 was one of the best shutdown defensemen in the league. Last year was a total mess for him. He was injured, not getting deployed properly everything that could go wrong for him went wrong. Super unlucky year last year. From what Ive seen from him so far this year, he looks to be back. I think he will be a really good addition to this Avs team. he steps into the lineup as the best defensive defenseman on the team. He should be out there defending leads, and killing penalties, its what he excels in.

EJ as the 7th defenseman is meh. Hes not very effective now. He provides a good veteran presence and brings some leadership, but his on ice play has been equivalent to a 6th-7th defenseman over the last couple years. He could be okay as a bottom pair guy, but I dont expect much more from him.