There’s no telling if 27-year-old center Paul Stastny will re-sign with the Colorado Avalanche before his five-year, $33 million contract expires this summer, but he’s having fun, which is more than he’s been able to say for a while.
“We were losing all the time. Things weren’t changing much. It was just bad in here,” Stastny told the Denver Post.
That has changed under new coach Patrick Roy and executive vice president Joe Sakic. The Avalanche are 20-7-0 going into tonight’s game against Vancouver. Even after their humiliating 8-2 loss to Edmonton on Thursday, they were able to bounce right back with a win against Calgary.
It’s more than just the fact that the team is winning games though. In the past, Stastny feels that if he wanted to bring up a concern, management’s response would be to tell him to play better.
“Well, yeah, I understand that,” Stastny said, “but in the past it was players on one side and management on the other side and there wasn’t much communication. We have more of a two-way street now.”
Of course, the fact that Stastny’s enjoying his time with Colorado doesn’t make him a lock to stay. For one thing, the Avalanche are already strong up the middle with Matt Duchene and Nathan MacKinnon.
Plus there’s the matter of Stastny’s pay. He currently comes with a $6.6 million annual cap hit, but that was based on his tremendous start to his NHL career. He had 78 points as a rookie and reached the 70-point mark two more times in his first four campaigns.
His numbers have dipped significantly, to the point where he has eight goals and 17 points in 25 games this season. That creates an awkward situation where the Avalanche might demand that he take a significant pay cut if he wants to stick with them.
Either way, the Avalanche still have a lot of games ahead of them before they have to close the books on 2013-14. Especially if they keep playing like this.