A plethora of young talent led the Colorado Avalanche to a surprising first-place finish in the Central Division. Can they repeat their success for a second consecutive year or will they take a step back down to earth?
Offense
Three young stars lead Colorado's offense again: Matt Duchene, captain Gabriel Landeskog and 2013-14 Calder Trophy winner for Rookie of the Year Nathan MacKinnon. Unfortunately, the Avs lost star center Paul Stastny in free agency - to the division rival St. Louis Blues.
While it would be extremely difficult to replace Stastny, Colorado did its best by adding veteran Jarome Iginla and trading P.A. Parenteau to the Montreal Canadiens in exchange for Daniel Briere.
While the Parenteau-Briere swap is controversial since Parenteau likely possesses more talent at this point in his career, Briere and Iginla both add a great amount of experience to a roster filled with young legs.
Colorado was fourth in the NHL in goals scored last season with a whopping 250 goals. The Avalanche should be near the top of the league in offense again this year, but expect that number to drop a little without Stastny in the lineup.
Defense
Probably the weakest part of the roster for Colorado is the defense. The Avalanche allowed the sixth-most shots in the NHL and plenty more than any other playoff team last season. To address this weakness on the blue line, Colorado signed veteran d-man Brad Stuart.
Tyson Barrie may be the team's top defenseman this year after a solid year offensively and defensively. Unfortunately, he was injured in the first round of the playoffs and the Avs lost in seven games to the Minnesota Wild.
This year, Barrie will be back on the blue line next to Erik Johnson, who still has not lived up to his first-overall pick potential but is nonetheless a solid defenseman.
Jan Hejda and Stuart round out the top four on a defensive corps that is improved but still below-average in the NHL.
Goaltending
A big reason for Colorado's success was the play of Vezina Trophy finalist Semyon Varlamov. He made up for the weak defense by posting a .927 save percentage and a 2.41 goals against average, all while going 41-14-6.
As great as Varlamov was in 2013-14, be wary of him this upcoming season. His history before last season was not great, and he was known for the most part as no more than a backup goaltender. He will be an extremely interesting name to keep an eye on this upcoming season.
Also, with the retirement of John-Sebastian Giguere, the Avalanche will have a new backup goaltender in Reto Berra. Berra played decently in Calgary last season as a backup and should be more than capable of doing the job in the Mile High City this year.
Special Teams
Colorado was fifth in the NHL on the man advantage last season, converting on 19.8% of their opportunities. The loss of Stastny could hurt this statistic slightly, but Iginla and Briere each scored four goals on the power play last year; as did Stastny.
The penalty kill, on the other hand, was 24th in hockey only successful in 80.7% of shorthanded attempts. Stuart could help the team in this regard, but the Avalanche really did not do much this offseason to improve the PK.
Coaching
Patrick Roy was incredible in his first year as Colorado's head coach, taking the team from the second-worst record in the NHL to atop the Central Division: finishing with a better record than even the St. Louis Blues or Chicago Blackhawks.
Plenty of experts gave praise to Roy for working with Varlamov and teaching him how to improve his goaltending technique. This will be something to keep an eye on during the regular season. Was Roy's success with Varlamov legitimately because of his coaching ability, or was it a mere fluke that will be reversed in Roy's sophomore year?
Season Outlook
Expecting Colorado to duplicate last year's success may be a little far-fetched. St. Louis, Chicago and the Dallas Stars will all be huge obstacles for the Avs to overcome in their quest for a second-straight division title, and the Minnesota Wild are not a pushover either.
Colorado's chances of repeating as division champions may be slim, but they still have the young offensive talent that led them to a successful year in 2013-14. In a strong Western Conference, there is a chance that Colorado could even regress to the playoff bubble, but the team's success will rest largely on the shoulders of Varlamov.
Projected Record: 43-29-10 (96 points)