Avs Talk - A Colorado Avalanche Blog

The Colorado Avalanche have signed Scott Hannan to a 4-year, 18 million dollar deal. This signing comes with a bit less shock as he has been heavily rumoured to head this way for the past week. Most of that rumouring came from Mr. Eklund who was batting well above .500 today on his e4 rumours. He was batting so well that I had a few posts ready to go based on his rumours.

With Scott Hannan they have added some excellent grit to the line up. Grit is my word for the day and the Avalanche are in sore need of it. I gave a fair bit of analysis on Hannan yesterday so I don't know if I can add much more than speculating on what his role will be with the Avalanche. And it shouldn't be too hard. Or will it? He is definitely going to be a shut-down defender and I could easily see him lining up with Liles or Leopold on the top line. But let's see if we can nail down all the pairings.

Clark and Skrastins will likely stay together again which leaves Liles, Leopold, Hannan and Sauer up for pairing. Or possibly Jeff Finger in place of Sauer. Now you wouldn't likely put Liles and Leopold, two offensively minded d-men, together except possibly on the powerplay. And you wouldn't pair Hannan with your 3rd line guy (Sauer or Finger). Since in my, and many others, opinion Leopold is more responsible than Liles you would want to put Hannan with Liles to form a good compliment.

But then that leaves Leopold pairing with Sauer or Finger on the third line. And I think now we can see where the dilemma lies. You've got 5 guys capable of playing in the top-4, but no clear cut 1-2 pairing. So one of those 5 top-4 players could see themselves getting limited ice-time. Or one of them could see themselves on the way out the door for a 3rd line D plus a pick.

So this signing could very well open up more wheeling and dealing from Mr. Giguere. And from what we've seen so far, he should be able to handle it well.