The Colorado Avalanche kicked off an insane 36-day stretch with a bang Tuesday night, picking up a much-needed victory over the Philadelphia Flyers, 4-0 at Wells Fargo Center.
The win brings Colorado to 5-9-1 on the year and finally gets them over the double-digit point threshold – the last team in the Central Division to reach that mark.
With the Avs’ early struggles, questions are already starting to fly about whether or not Colorado should consider moving some of its more valuable assets to shore up a blueline that continues to need improvement. One name that caught fire when it started circulating just a few days ago was none other than Matt Duchene, Colorado’s top draft pick and No. 3 overall in 2009.
Moving Duchene would be a tectonic shift for the organization, who has spent the last seven years assembling a club around him (and fellow top-three draft picks Gabriel Landeskog and Nathan MacKinnon). Duchene’s arrival in Denver marked the beginning of the #AvsNewAge (not officially trademarked and hashtagged until some years later), but that new age has produced just two playoff appearances in that time, which includes Duchene’s rookie season.
In many ways, Colorado seems to be running on a treadmill – in motion, but going nowhere. Already 13 points back in the division, Joe Sakic has some hard decisions that may come down to a fundamental question: Will he be loyal to the player or the organization in the case of a possible Matt Duchene trade?
Duchene has been a cornerstone for the Avs for seven years now, but at 24 years old (25 in January), and with big skills and no playoff success to show for it, Sakic may have to consider moving him to improve the team overall, so says Josh Davis and J.J. Jerez.
Davis and Jerez tackled this very tough question of loyalty on The Press Box Insider on Mile High Sports AM 1340. Davis thinks Sakic won’t openly shop Duchene, but should be quick to act on the right offer. Jerez says Colorado can’t keep moving top-six players and expect to build.
Josh Davis, host of The Press Box Insider on Mile High Sports AM 1340, has seen loyalty play out in bad ways for teams both here in Colorado and beyond. He’s concerned that undue loyalty to Matt Duchene – who has helped lead the Avalanche to the playoffs just twice in six years – could hamstring the team in the same fashion that Todd Helton did with the Rockies or Kobe Bryant is doing currently with the Lakers.
Duchene turns 25 in January, so he’s still many, many years away from being well past his prime as Helton was for the final (let’s be honest) four years of his career. And Duchene’s currently on a large, but not astronomical, contract – $6 million per year for the next four years, including this one. But Colorado can’t stay forever loyal to Duchene and pass out another big contract, especially when the playoff results aren’t there and the value window for Duchene is still wide open.
On several occasions, the Rockies had the opportunity to trade Todd Helton when his value was still high. As Davis points out, they showed loyalty to Helton (see Helton’s parting gift, a horse). That’s rare in this day and age, especially in sports. But what did it get them? A five-time All-Star first baseman who had 44 home runs and a .264 batting average combined over his final four years. Yes, Helton got to retire with the Rockies and have his number retired, but the franchise has not had a winning season since 2010 and has posted three of the club’s five worst seasons since 2012. Not moving on Helton kept them stuck in a hole they’ve still yet to escape.
“If I’m the GM,” Davis says, “I pull the trigger on the right deal, even if I’m not shopping Duchene.” Sakic, in Davis’ eyes, needs to be loyal to the franchise first and the player second. Duchene hasn’t been given an astronomical contract like Helton, which helps his trade value in the present. The closer he comes to a bigger payday, the harder he will be to move. And the Avs certainly don’t want a Paul Stastny situation, in which they lose a top-six forward for nothing in free agency.
Duchene would bring the biggest ransom right now, and Davis is resolute that Sakic shouldn’t be overly loyal to his player if he can improve his team with a trade. J.J. Jerez, who covers the Avs for Mile High Sports, doesn’t necessarily agree. He thinks the Avs need to stop leaking top-line players and build around them.
When it comes to sports contracts that scream “loyalty,” perhaps none are louder than Kobe Bryant’s $48.5 million paid last year and this year. Now 37 years old, Bryant is a shell of the player who deserved $20-plus million – he played in less than half of the Lakers’ games last year, for crying out loud.
But for all the money the Lakers are spending on Bryant, J.J. Jerez, writer for Mile High Sports, reminds us that Bryant helped make the Lakers that money several times over during his tenure, not to mention the five world championships he helped deliver.
Perhaps a Kobe Bryant to Matt Duchene comparison is unfair – Duchene is a great player, but not head-and-shoulders above the rest of the league as Bryant was for many years – but Jerez thinks there is a lesson the Avs can learn from Kobe.
The Lakers could have demanded the world for Kobe, but they were never going to get a combination of players who could equal more success.
The Avs need defense, but without other high-value tradable assets to shop, Jerez thinks Colorado should hold pat on Duchene and continue to build around him. Other teams may want players like Nathan MacKinnon or Gabriel Landeskog, but they are simply off the table, says Jerez. Even if Duchene is a possible asset to be moved, Jerez says Colorado won’t get a top-six player in return and they can’t afford to keep letting those players leave.
In the past 16 months, Colorado has parted ways with Ryan O’Reilly and Paul Stastny – both considered cornerstones at one time just as Duchene is now. Stastny walked as a free agent, netting nothing. O’Reilly (plus Jamie McGinn) yielded Nikita Zadorov, Mikhail Grigorenko, J.T Compher and a draft pick that ultimately became A.J. Greer.
Colorado, as Jerez suggests, doesn’t need more players; they need consistency. Jerez isn’t the only one who sees roster turnover as one of the biggest problems for the Avalanche. The guys from The Sin Bin on Mile High Sports AM 1340 hit on this same topic Sunday.
Jerez says Colorado must at least wait until the new year before making any real decisions on Duchene. In the meantime, he thinks shopping goaltender Semyon Varlamov and winger Jarome Iginla could yield more positive results until then.
Can Duchene lead Colorado to multiple world titles like Kobe? Probably not. But they have a better chance of making the playoffs with him than without him at this point.
Listen to the full discussion between Davis and Jerez in the podcast below…