Ever since the Colorado Avalanche cleaned the champagne and beer stains out of their clothes in the summer of 2022, they’ve been trying to recapture perhaps the most important part of that team. It’s easy to point to Nathan MacKinnon and Cale Makar as the biggest pieces, and certainly not wrong to do so. They’re among the best at their positions in the league. In Makar’s case, one of the best of all-time and redefining that position. But they’ve been around in the seasons since, and the Avs haven’t seen a conference final since that championship run.
No, the engine of that 2022 Avs was Nazem Kadri, the #2 center. Kadri was one of the most unique weapons in the league then. A checking-first center who could also produce 80+ points, as he did then, and consistently be above 0.5 points-per-game. Kadri was a do-everything Swiss Army knife who could be sicced on an opponent’s best line while also outscoring whoever he was up against. Second-line scoring and main defensive duties are usually the job of two centers. Kadri made it one. Thanks to him, the Avs could get away with bewildered oafs like Darren Helm, J.T. Compher, and Tyson Jost at center on the the third and fourth lines and not watch the whole team go Edmund Fitzgerald because of it.
The Avs haven’t been able to have anything like that since Kadri moved on in free agency to Calgary. They’ve tried a host of players at both second- and third-line center, and none of it has really worked. The Casey Mittelstadt Reclamation Project (opening for The Lumineers these days), Alex Newhook, and putting Ryan Johansen on a diet all failed to get the Avs back to the heights of 2022, or really anywhere close.
The Avs sought to cure this last season, with the acquisitions of both Brock Nelson and Jack Drury. Essentially they’re attempting to recreate Kadri in the aggregate, with Nelson and Drury splitting the job.
Whether Nelson can be a straight second-line center for a Cup-worthy team is a real question, but the opening act of Drury in Denver was pretty encouraging. Drury was given the dungeon shifts by coach Jared Bednar, starting just 38 percents of his shifts in the offensive zone. That was nearly less than half of what he got in Carolina, and definitely a change in roles. However, starting at the ass-end of the ice most of the time didn’t keep Drury from pushing the play to the right end of the ice. Drury ran a 55 percent Corsi-rate in Colorado, with a 51 percent expected-goals share as well, even with having to do the hard work to stay on the positive side of both ledgers.
Better yet, Drury’s defensive numbers were still some of the best on the team, even though he mostly started with the toughest assignments. Drury’s expected goals-against at 5-on-5 was 2.36, better than MacKinnon’s, even though he had to begin play in his defensive end of the ice nearly two-thirds of the time. It was a mark in the top-quarter of all centers in the league.
If that is what Drury is going forward, it allows MacKinnon and Nelson to only concentrate on scoring. Nelson should get more talented wingers in Gabriel Landeskog and Valeri Nichushkin than he had on Long Island, though at 33 questions of decline are worth asking. Defensive depth is another, as beyond Makar and Devon Toews there isn’t a whole lot, and the rotting corpse of Brent Burns isn’t an answer. Perhaps splitting Makar and Toews up would be a solution, but it’s not one the Avs have ever really considered.
But the biggest gap they’ve faced since having a parade is one they may be closest to solving this upcoming season. If Drury is that key, the Avs can dream big.
Is Jack Drury Half A Kadri The Colorado Avalanche Need?