I wasn’t going to write anything on the Brett Clark injury, because I think it’s been covered pretty well already (in case you missed it, Clark suffered a dislocated shoulder on Tuesday and is out indefinitely). He’ll be replaced in the lineup by Karlis Skrastins (insert clever tagline here). For all the piling on we do of Skrastins, he’s actually been generally solid of late - not quite $2.4 million solid, but we can’t have everything.
Still, Clark’s absence leaves a huge sinkhole of ice time to fill in all categories.
PP TOI
| Pos | Name | GP | Total TOI | TOI/G | PPG | PPA | PPPT | PPOI | PPOI% |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| D | Liles | 56 | 257.6 | 4.6 | 2 | 13 | 15 | 25 | 74% |
| D | Clark | 57 | 180.9 | 3.2 | 1 | 5 | 6 | 14 | 41% |
| D | Finger | 53 | 44.0 | 0.8 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 5 | 15% |
| D | Cumiskey | 31 | 42.9 | 1.4 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 3% |
| D | Leopold | 28 | 38.7 | 1.4 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 6% |
| D | Hannan | 57 | 25.4 | 0.4 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 3% |
| D | Boychuk | 4 | 4.1 | 1.0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0% |
| D | Skrastins | 38 | 3.5 | 0.1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0% |
| D | Sauer | 29 | 2.8 | 0.1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0% |
Clark is one of the two key contributors here, both in ice time and in scoring. There’s about 3 minutes a game that will need to be replaced. Finger, Liles and Hannan are all candidates to fill Clark’s shoes…er, skates. Or, could we see a return of a forward to the point? (I hope not). Either way, does this injury take Liles off the trade block?
PK TOI
| P | Name | GP | TOI | TOI/G | GA | GA/60 | Min/Goal |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| D | Clark | 57 | 183.2 | 3.2 | 22 | 7.20 | 8.3 |
| D | Hannan | 57 | 181.2 | 3.2 | 19 | 6.29 | 9.5 |
| D | Finger | 53 | 105.8 | 2.0 | 10 | 5.67 | 10.6 |
| D | Skrastins | 38 | 96.5 | 2.5 | 7 | 4.35 | 13.8 |
| D | Sauer | 29 | 76.5 | 2.6 | 15 | 11.76 | 5.1 |
| D | Leopold | 28 | 19.0 | 0.7 | 2 | 6.31 | 9.5 |
| D | Liles | 56 | 5.2 | 0.1 | 1 | 11.61 | 5.2 |
| D | Cumiskey | 31 | 1.7 | 0.1 | 0 | 0.00 | 1.7 |
| D | Boychuk | 4 | 0.0 | 0.0 | 0 | 0.0 |
The penalty kill is probably the toughest loss. Clark leads the team in PK TOI and leads the team in blocked shots. In fact, even if he doesn’t play in another game this year (which is sounding likely) he may still lead the team in blocks at the end of the year. With him out, your four penalty killers are Hannan, Finger, Sauer and Skrastins. Not a bad unit. But, if one of those guys is in the box, who gets the call? Leopold? I’m not sure that I’m excited by that at all.
EV TOI
| P | Name | GP | EVTOI | /g | EVG | EVA | EVPTS |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| D | Hannan | 57 | 1063.7 | 18.7 | 1 | 13 | 14 |
| D | Clark | 57 | 955.9 | 16.8 | 4 | 11 | 15 |
| D | Finger | 53 | 868.6 | 16.4 | 3 | 8 | 11 |
| D | Liles | 56 | 799.2 | 14.3 | 0 | 7 | 7 |
| D | Skrastins | 38 | 588.4 | 15.5 | 1 | 2 | 3 |
| D | Sauer | 29 | 444.3 | 15.3 | 1 | 5 | 6 |
| D | Leopold | 28 | 423.8 | 15.1 | 3 | 4 | 7 |
| D | Cumiskey | 31 | 342.1 | 11.0 | 0 | 5 | 5 |
| D | Boychuk | 4 | 31.7 | 7.9 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
Clark leads all our defensemen in even strength scoring. This is an area where the team already has guys (Leopold and Liles) who are perfectly capable of filling some of the offensive void…but we’ve been not-so-patiently waiting for that to happen all season long. Defensively, this puts more pressure on guys like Finger, Sauer and Skrastins - guys who have generally done well, but might not be up to the challenge of increased ice time against the other teams top lines (a job Clark had been sharing with Sauer).
While Clark isn’t the favorite among a lot of Avalanche fans, his jack-of-all-trades skillset makes him an extremely valuable player and a potentially devastating loss. He is the only Colorado defenseman currently used in any situation of the game. Hannan is probably the closest to Clark in that regard, and I personally think he could be effective if given more minutes on the powerplay. Hannan aside (he’s already logging some large minutes as it is), no one player is going to replace Clark. It’s going to be a group effort and is likely to push a few players beyond their comfort levels. It will challenge our coaching staff as well, but that thought is just too depressing to dwell on.
If Coach Q has taught us anything it’s that Forwards and Defender’s are completely interchangeable. I fully expect Guite and McCormick to be able to step up and play 15-20 minutes of defense a night and fill Clark’s shoes.
It’s comments like that that make me glad that no one from the team reads this silly blog (I don’t want them to get any bright ideas)
You don’t think they’ve already thought about it?
Even though the Avs list him as Day-to-day Dater says in his blog Clark’s injury is probably season ending.
Is it possible for one organization have more inaccurate injury reporting or what.
I’m wondering if it really is a coincidence that my two favorite teams are the Avs and the Pats - two of the most unbelievably tightlippped organizations in all of sports.
Jibble didn’t mean it, but he’s right to a certain extent. It’s easier for a DMan to move to a wing and play well than vice-versa, but I have never understood why NHL teams are so dead set on not moving players between defense and the wing. Training your forwards to play defense and DMan to play the forward roles can only help your team. And there have been a lot of players who moved from one position to another at some point in their careers and went on to excel.
Just to be clear. I didn’t say it wasn’t possible, but it’s not an overnight transformation. Since Clark is hurt now, and they need someone to fill in now moving one of their forwards back there and expecting him to step in immediately is absurd. That was the joke, not that it’s impossible
Could we see Jillson or Love? Or is it Cumiskey with Boychuk next in line? I’d like to see the toughness of Mitch Love myself. It’s a bad situation no matter how you cut it though.