As the Colorado Avalanche tumble through the final nine games of a season which, for all intents and purposes, ended months ago, it’s easy to forget there’s still meaningful hockey happening out there. While it might not feel like it inside the Avalanche locker room, the hockey world carries on, and that means two things: 1) the start of the NCAA tournament and 2) a number of quality young NCAA hockey players hitting free agency.
Perhaps even more troubling than the Avalanche’s historically bad NHL season is the lack of obvious help coming up through their system. They boast a bottom-five AHL team, and beyond their projected top four pick in the 2017 draft, plus Tyson Jost, who has put together an impressive rookie campaign at the University of North Dakota, the Avs’ collection of high impact prospects is among the NHL’s worst.