from Mark Kiszla of the Denver Post,

It’s Stanley Cup or bust. Anything less than a championship for the Avalanche won’t be good enough.

And this time, for the first time in a long time, the Avs really mean it.

“We expect to compete for the Stanley Cup. At the end of the year, we want to hoist that over our heads,” Avalanche general manager Joe Sakic said Tuesday, on the eve of the home-opener against St. Louis....

“We feel we have as good a shot as anybody else in the league,” Sakic said.

But here’s my concern: For the Avalanche to hoist the Cup, does Sakic need to pay tribute to his mentor and make one more blockbuster move to solidify the most important position on the ice? The Avs need a goaltender with stand-on-his-head, can’t-believe-he-made-that-save, playoff-game-stealing bona fides.

“We really believe we have two really good goalies,” Sakic said.

I respectfully disagree....

“Patrick Roy. One of the best ever. In my mind, the best to ever play that position. So we were spoiled,” Sakic said.

While there are myriad ways to measure the holy-moly greatness of St. Patrick, these are the two stats that are still crazy after all these years: Roy was the goalie of record in mind-boggling 81 playoff victories for the Avalanche, and in the team’s two championship runs, his 2.04 goals-against average was so stellar I had to check twice to make certain it wasn’t a misprint. His presence alone nearly ensured Colorado would be competitive in every postseason series.

Can the same be said with Philipp Grubauer and Pavel Francouz?

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