A roster where 15 players are 25 and under must be really unexperienced, right? Not exactly what happens with the Colorado Avalanche, after the major rebuild this team has been through since the 2012 season, there hadn't been a season this team has been younger than this. But they are very confident of a strong playoff run this time.

This is a team with no real 1st line player, except for Kudelski and Ostaltsov, the player rotation is insane, you can see some players going from 1st to 4th line from one game to another, and that may be one of the main reasons of the team's instability.

After starting the season with a great record, and being undefeated at home for a long time, the GM felt it was time to bring in even more youth to the squad and traded away goalie Stefan Liv (who had been the best in the league in his short Avs's ternure) and all-star winger Sergei Samsonov (who had announced earlier in the season to retire his skates at season's end). This trade led the team to a major slump, going down from 1st in the division (5 points ahead of Vancouver) to 4th, just behind Edmonton.

Ruslan Harkov, who is only 19, took the starting goalie role as he is considered to be a future star in the goaltending scene, but the word "future" tells exactly what he is. His first 15 games with the Avs, he had a below average 50% winning rate, 3.24 GAA and 86.6% saving rate. Not even close to Liv's numbers who had won over 70% of his games, a 2.18 GAA and slightly over 90% of the shots were saved. But in his last 5 games, Harkov has been proving why he was brought to be a star, he has been undefeated in this and we are seeing his GAA getting lower and his Save% go higher from game to game.

Avs head coach Bob Hartley agrees that the goaltending issue must be what brought the team numbers down. "Our defense is the best of the league in protecting the pipes, but the Harkov kid is still learning the pace and strength of a GHL game, we are putting him to play so he can be at least a little experienced come playoff time." Bob told us.

The team also looks like it didn't find a "clicking" 1st line, a lot of experiments have been made on that matter, players like Bengtsson, Rogers, Nordin, Gagne, Zahuranec, Galley all have had the chance to play with Kudelski in the top line, but no line combination seem to make much succes. The most recent line of Nordin - Kudelski - Bengtsson seems to have clicked better and it is likely to be maintained all season long, as also the 2nd line of Rogers - Huot - Galley is working well.

Although Colorado is bouncing back at the division run for the title (and also for the league title), GM Lucas Codato said he is looking for a little improvement in the defensive playmaking area. "We need a quarterback to kickstart our offense, but it hasn't been easy to find one, although our defense is not a liability offensively we would love to bring a playmaker to amke our defense even stronger."

The fan hopes? Well, getting past the 1st round is good enough, but finding a way of not facing St. Louis right away could solve half of this problem.