The Colorado Avalanche took a flier on Jonathan Drouin this offseason, getting little risk on a friendly one-year deal to bring in one of Nathan MacKinnon’s old linemates from their junior hockey days. The experiment didn’t start out so well, but Drouin is finally clicking with Colorado’s top line as the Avs look to push to the top of the Western Conference.
Drouin’s recent surge has pushed him to a modest 24 points on the season, but that makes him Colorado’s fifth-leading scorer. He’s also fifth on the team in goals with 10, and has at least a point in 12 of his last 15 games. The surge in scoring has been welcome for a top-heavy Avalanche club that has desperately been seeking depth scoring throughout the 2023-24 campaign.
Drouin Stumbled to Start Season
Drouin scored just three points through the team’s first 15 games, and it looked like his reunion with MacKinnon was a total bust. He was playing alongside MacKinnon and Mikko Rantanen on the top line. While the other two were piling up points, Drouin was getting left behind. He didn’t score his first goal until the 12th game of the season – a third-period tally in a 5-1 win over the Seattle Kraken on Nov. 13.
Calling it a slow start wouldn’t be fair to most other slow starts. Through the first two months of the campaign, he registered a point in just five of the team’s 20 games. That resulted in him bouncing around on a number of different line combinations. Along with playing on the top line, Drouin was also mixed with newcomers Ryan Johansen and Tomas Tatar (who has since been traded), as well as other newcomers Ross Colton and Miles Wood. Nothing seemed to work, at least consistently.
Drouin was also bumped from any meaningful power-play time, and saw his minutes dwindle from 17-plus minutes on opening night to barely scratching out between 10-12 minutes a game in November. He looked a far cry from the guy that scored 18 goals and 53 points for the Montreal Canadiens back in 2018-19 – and more like the guy that scored 17 goals combined in the four seasons since then. It looked like it wasn’t working out, but then he was reunited with MacKinnon on that top line once again.
Top Line Gets Drouin Rolling
Thanks to injuries and other line shuffling, Drouin found his way back on the line next to MacKinnon and Rantanen, and he isn’t letting this second opportunity slide. He has scored seven goals and 16 points over his last 15 games, and has registered five goals in his last six contests. That includes a two-goal effort on Jan. 4, as his goals helped Colorado erase a pair of two-goal deficits in a 5-4 road victory over the Dallas Stars.
Most recently, Drouin had a goal and an assist in Colorado’s 5-3 win over the Toronto Maple Leafs last Saturday. The Avs trailed 3-0 after the first period, but Drouin scored a power-play tally 5:27 into the second to get Colorado’s comeback rolling. This is important on a few levels. He is proving his worth in crucial situations, and he’s earning playing time with the power-play unit. He has a point on the power play in three of the last five games, including a pair of power-play goals.
Drouin’s ice time has also rocketed up. After struggling to hit even 15 minutes on the ice through much of November and December, he is averaging 23:40 of ice time over the last seven games. It helps that his scoring has ticked up, but it’s no coincidence that that number has risen since reuniting with MacKinnon. This is what the Avalanche were looking for when they signed him, but it will be interesting to see how long he can continue this level of play.
Why the Avalanche Need Drouin
Depth scoring has been an issue for Colorado, and the Avalanche have been rolling lately because they’ve been getting more of it. Drouin has led the way in this department, notching 11 points over the team’s last 11 games. The Avs have gone 9-1-1 in that stretch, including a 3-0-1 mark on the road. They’ll be hoping to continue that trend, as well, since the Avalanche’s next four games are away from home.
This recent surge by Drouin highlights what Colorado was hoping to get from all their moves in the offseason to add depth forwards. With 10 goals through 41 games this season, he has matched his goal total from the previous three years combined. He played six seasons with the Canadiens before coming to Colorado, but scored a paltry total of 17 goals over the final four seasons. He also never scored more than 29 points in that stretch, and already has 24 points this season.
It’s been tough for the Avalanche to replace Gabriel Landeskog’s scoring, as the captain is out for the year following surgery. It also didn’t help when Artturi Lehkonen was sidelined after a nasty hit. The other players Colorado brought in – Johansen, Wood, and Colton – have been serviceable, but the consistency has struggled to emerge. The Avalanche need Drouin to keep up this play to cement some consistency in that top line. At more than halfway through the season, it’s pretty late to be talking about solidifying lines, but Drouin has shown that it’s better late than never – and has Colorado back as a threat to win the West once again.
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