Ouch

Haven't blogged much lately, but there hasn't been a whole lot to say about the Avs. Since their 6 game winning streak in mid-December the team has gone a dismal 6-21-4. That's right, after winning 6 games in a row, the Avs have since won only 6 games since December 19th (the last win of that 6 game streak). During this streak we also saw Peter Forsberg attempt his NHL comeback and only manage to play in 2 road games before finally announcing his retirement.

After being one of the top scoring teams in the NHL for the first part of the season, the Avs have turned into the most-scored upon team in the league (they have allowed 229 goals, more than any other team). The trade deadline saw goaltender Craig Anderson packing his bags, which was probably a positive since many were questioning whether Anderson wanted to be in Colorado (and given his pretty good play since being traded, I think the answer to that is apparent). They also traded away young talent in Chris Stewart and Kevin Shattenkirk while getting Erik Johnson and Jay McClement in return. The trade may not be horrible in the long run, but it made lots of fans question if the 'rebuild from within' plan the Avs had was being given up on.

Anyone still watching the team knows that they have failed to consistently put a full 60 minute effort into a game for a long time. They either come out slow and fail to "start a game on time" as Coach Sacco likes to put it or they start fine and quit in the middle of the game. It's quite disheartening as a fan to see the team just completely quit mid-game. These are supposed to be professional athletes who shouldn't just give up when things aren't going right. Fans have blamed the injuries, the players, the coaches, the management and ownership for the teams' troubles, but none of us can say for sure where things went so horribly awry.

I can't speak for all Avs fans, but I'm sure a lot of you out there agree, this has been the single most frustrating and upsetting period of time ever for me as a fan. I can handle the team losing as long as they are at least putting in an effort. I can't take it when the team gives up mid-game or comes out unprepared for the game at the start. The problems this team has are many, but the solutions are not simple. All of the players who have injuries can't be magically healed and even if they could be, it's not certain that it would fix things.

Perhaps the answer lies in getting rid of the head coach. The Avs did better last year with Joe Sacco at the helm than was expected of them, however this success probably was not just because of Sacco's coaching. The Avs had a lot of young talented players have breakout seasons last year. It could be that they're having a collective sophomore slump this year. However, it could be that the team is just not responding to their coach's methods.

Sacco has a reputation for benching players he feels are not performing up to their potential. He even sends players to the minors as a wake-up call. Both methods have shown success in the past (Chris Stewart came back from the minors last year and was great afterwards), but his methods probably don't work for every player. The team says that he will be kept on through next year, so if the team gets healthy in the off-season we will see what Sacco can really do as a coach.

Obviously something has to change because the Avs have been downright horrible lately. The playoffs are out of the question at this point this season. It's not too late to try and at least salvage some pride though. It's awful watching the team lose game after game and not even putting in an effort most of the time. It's completely unacceptable for a team to play the way the Avs have been lately and even the players say that when interviewed, but then it's the same thing night after night on the ice.

They have put in a few decent efforts lately, but they need to put in a good effort every night. Then maybe things will start going their way more. If you don't try, things will just not go your way and only get worse and worse as we have seen. Maybe there's some bad luck involved for the Avs with all their injuries, but that doesn't explain the pitiful effort the team has been putting forth of late.