now that i’m thinking back to this, i also wonder if they were just the wrong players for that system?
yes they were a superteam with two centers each capable of competing for a hart/ross, but in the transition from crawford to hartley, they also became a lockdown team defensively.
the 2002 season, when roy almost won his third vezina, the avs were bottom half in goals for, but had the fewers goals against by double digits (and almost twenty fewer than new jersey). then in 2003, the goals for went back up in the forsberg/hejduk season, but they were still 7th in goals against (fewer than detroit, one goal more than the babcock ducks, trailing only the lemaire wild in the west).
tbh, i don’t really remember the specifics now — i only remember one colorado game from that year, you all know the one — but as they’re now riding aebischer in ’04 instead of roy, was this a case of adding two run and gun guys to a defensive shell team and they were just lost/badly managed by a rookie coach? (and funnily enough, granato’s rookie assistant coach that year, btw, is going to win the adams this year)