Trying to Find a Bright Spot in the Avalanche's Terrible Season

The Colorado Avalanche are a special kind of bad. Barring a surprise ending on the level of The Usual Suspects (go watch it), the Avalanche will finish with the NHL's worst points percentage since the 2004-05 lockout. Over the past 20 years, only three teams—the 1999-2000 Atlanta Thrashers and the 1997-98 and 1998-99 Tampa Bay Lightning—have had worse seasons.

Unlike other historically bad teams, however, the Avalanche aren't a freshly minted expansion club, nor are they tanking to land a generational talent; they're just bad. It's the saddest kind of bad a team can be.

But you know me—I'm a positive person. I'm always searching for the silver lining. When it comes to the Avalanche, I'm looking for the good in them. I'm Luke Skywalker to their Darth Vader. I've opened up my eager eyes. I'm Mr. Brightside.

So for those of you who are Avalanche fans looking for sunshine through a dark sky, or if you've seen through this setup and are simply excited for a lot of jokes at the Avalanche's expense, we've got you covered with the following list of reasons to be excited for the future in Denver.

1. Despite the losses, the Avalanche are still scoring goals. Through 71 games, the Avs are scoring… hmmm, 1.94 goals per game. That's the worst mark in the league. Sorry. That's my bad. I probably should have done some advanced research on this instead of going with the stream of consciousness approach. Let's start over.

1. The scoring is down but the defense is solid. A good sign for the future is when a team has a defensive structure that can serve as a foundation moving forward. With the Avs holding teams to… damn it, 3.28 goals per game? Wow. That's also the worst mark in the league. OK, fine. There's more to hockey than scoring goals and preventing goals. Yeah, I read that last sentence, too, but let's just keep going.

1. A team possessed. With a 46.0 percent score-adjusted Fenwick, the Avalanche are not the worst! That honor belongs to the Arizona Coyotes (44.6), who would be catching a lot more heat for their ineptitude if not for the giant shadow of incompetence coming over the Rocky Mountains. Anyway, I was hoping to chalk this season up to a lot of bad breaks, but that Fenwick isn't anything close to a beacon of light. I'll get better at this, promise.

1. The power play. Geez. It's 12.9 percent. I had a whole thing written about how the skilled players were showing what they can do on the man advantage, but 12.9 percent is the sixth-worst mark since the season-long lockout. Skip this.

1. A great young core. This one is for real. Nathan MacKinnon. Gabriel Landeskog. Matt Duchene. They are 21, 24, and 26 years old, respectively, and represent a bright future. And when you look at the Edmonton Oilers, who had a core of talented young forwards, they turned their franchise around in… hmmm, that took a while, huh? They had to trade Taylor Hall and get Connor McDavid in the draft with their fourth crack at a first overall pick in six years. So maybe MacKinnon, Landeskog, and Duchene are less signs of hope and more harbingers of doom. This is not going how I planned. I'm really sorry.

1. The blue line. They have… whoops. I forgot. Sorry again.

1. The real No. 1 issue. Lost in this lost season is the fact that the Avalanche will have played nearly three-quarters of it without their No. 1 goaltender, Semyon Varlamov. Any team that loses a $6 million goaltender 23 games into the season will be devastated. So a sign of hope is how Varlamov played before his hip surgery, when he had a… oh god, a .898 save percentage and a 3.38 goals-against average? Is that right? I'm going to find you hope, I swear.

1. No, the real No. 1 issue. The Avalanche will have the most lottery balls in June and the best chance at the No. 1 overall pick, which can instantly transform a franchise from laughingstock to playoff contender. Just ask the Oilers and McDavid, or the Leafs and Auston Matthews. That's what the Avalanche could have with projected top pick Nolan Patrick, who… oh, come on. Really? Is this really what people have said about Patrick? He's more of a second-line center? That's it? This is the year the Avs accidentally tank? Speaking of tanking, I'm running out of gas in this quest.

1. The franchise is in capable hands. With Joe Sakic at the helm… just kidding. Ha! Had you going there.

1. Prospects are everything. Sure, Patrick may not have the impact of McDavid or Matthews, but years of solid drafting have given the Avalanche… the 30th-ranked group of prospects, according to Hockey's Future? THIRTIETH? How can a team that has missed the playoffs in six of the past eight seasons have this bad a farm system? What goes on in that front office? Anything? Is it just a bunch of dudes hitting bongs and eating Papa Johns? Can they hire me? No, no, no. I won't be derelict in my duties of finding something good about the Avs. I can do it.

1. They are still young. According to NHL Numbers, the Avs are the 17th-youngest team in the league. That's… something, right? They're not the oldest team or close to it. Yes. This counts. This team is middle-aged! It's not old! It's middle-aged!

2. They have cool uniforms. They do!

3. Patrick Roy can't quit on them again. Sure!

4. They're rarely on national TV. That's more a good thing for the rest of us than for Avs fans, but these straws aren't going to grasp at themselves.

5. Nobody makes you read a lot about very bad teams. Oh, is this a shot at me? Fine. You have a point. Unlike the Avs season, I am at least kind enough to put this piece out of its misery before April.

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