LOS ANGELES — Avalanche ice-time leader Tyson Barrie had a minus-2 rating Tuesday at Anaheim and entered Wednesday’s game against the Kings with a minus-25, worst among the NHL’s 802 players. Make no mistake, the skilled undersized defenseman has been a detriment to the league’s worst team at even strength.
That doesn’t mean he is not a good player. It means Barrie is not being used to his strength as a depth defenseman/power-play specialist — primarily because of the long-term injury to Erik Johnson and also because of Colorado’s poor depth on the blue line.
To wit:
— In 11 games playing less than 22 minutes, Barrie is a combined minus-1.
— In 32 games playing more than 22 minutes — typically an every-night occurrence since Johnson broke his leg Dec. 3 — Barrie is a combined minus-24.
Bottom line: Barrie, 25, is over-played as Colorado’s dominant right-shooting defenseman. That’s Johnson’s role, and the Avs played without “EJ” for the 25th consecutive game Wednesday.
“You want a guy like Tyson to get a lot of offensive-zone starts (faceoffs) and put in areas where he’s able to use some of his best tools,” Avs coach Jared Bednar said pregame at the Staples Center. “Now, we don’t have the luxury, with EJ (out), (Barrie) is seeing a lot more D-zone starts and playing in a lot of defensive situations. That’s good for his growth, but when you have a guy like EJ, also on the right side, you have two guys you can bounce back and forth. That helps our team both offensively and defensively if we were splitting up those shifts a little more accordingly.”
Bednar’s predecessor, Patrick Roy, wasn’t a big fan of Barrie playing big minutes, and Roy resigned about two weeks after Barrie signed a four-year, $22 million contract extension on July 31. Roy’s sudden departure might have had little to do with Barrie’s contract, but Roy certainly did not believe Barrie was capable of a top-pairing, 24-minutes-per-night role — yet his new $5.5 million cap hit suggests he is just that.
Barrie’s horrible season is no different than the other core members of this sinking ship. Captain Gabe Landeskog is accused of being unable to lead and he and fellow forwards Matt Duchene and Nathan MacKinnon have underachieved offensively, among other areas. Goalies Semyon Varlamov and Calvin Pickard have save percentages under .900 and the Avalanche generally plays slow and uninspired hockey.
It’s a mess than general manager Joe Sakic oversees, and Barrie can’t be blamed for being the best defenseman left standing on a bad blue line. He’s just not in the right role.
“Obviously, having EJ go down was a big blow for the team and it forced guys to play a lot of minutes,” Barrie said before Tuesday’s 5-1 loss at Anaheim. “I certainly got a chance to play a lot of minutes. It’s a good challenge.”
Regarding his plus-minus rating (which is only calculated at even-strength), Barrie said this before going minus-2 against the Ducks: “Obviously, I’d love to be higher but maybe I can bring it back into the atmosphere here for the second half of the season.”
Problem is, the second half of the season could turn into more of a nightmare than the first. Johnson is still weeks away from a return, the blue line won’t likely be rebuilt until the offseason and as playoff time approaches, other teams play harder and the bad teams just want it all to end.
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