from Terry Frei of the Denver Post,

In the getting-the-band-back-together era here, perhaps some of this goes back to remembering when the Avs were a destination franchise and re-signing prospective unrestricted free agents — at least the ones the Avs wanted to re-sign — was a virtual given. (This isn’t parallel, but a cash-starved Avalanche-Nuggets ownership even found a way to match the New York Rangers’ three-year, front-loaded, $21-million offer sheet to a restricted free agent superstar named Sakic in 1997.) Yes, that all was before the 2004-05 lockout and subsequent implementation of the salary cap changed everything and led to the departures of Peter Forsberg and Adam Foote.

So I’ll concede it’s unfair to go too far back in judging these moves.

But it comes back to this: Especially given the way the Avalanche folded down the stretch, Colorado still is staking an enormous amount of faith in the “core” to make this a better team, largely through natural progression. A Semyon Varlamov return to consistently elite status would be a great start, but the buck (or puck) doesn’t stop there. Has this “core” earned that much trust? No. Not yet.

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