Another ascent: after last year's Western finals collapse, Peter Forsberg and the Avalanche look to scale Mount Stanley again - Colorado Avalanche hockey team hopes to play in Stanley Cup again

Hockey Digest, Dec, 2002 by Adrian Dater

COLORADO AVALANCHE FANS are the trust-fund babies of the NHL.

From the Avs' "birth" in Denver in 1995, their fans have been spoiled rotten with great teams. Forget about any growing pains, Avs fans got a Stanley Cup right off the hop, after Quebec Nordiques loyalists bid the team adieu following 23 years of dry runs.

In the first seven years of Avalanche tenancy, Coloradoans received two Stanley Cups, six Western finals appearances, and seven division flags.

The Avalanche entered the 2002-03 season with the training camp slogan, "Pursuing History," which will be made if they win their ninth straight division title. (The Nordiques won their division the franchise's last season in Quebec.) But to the team and especially its fans, division flags might as well be used as spare bed sheets or rags in the garage.

Anything but a Cup draws thumbsdown from the masses at the Pepsi Center, and that again is the case this season. And why not? With last names such as Roy, Sakic, Forsberg, Blake, and Foote still on the roster, Colorado still must be ranked as a prime heavyweight contender to take back the Cup from the hated Detroit Red Wings, who escaped the Avs' noose in last year's Western finals to make off with the silver booty.

The Avs thought they had a date all set up with patsy Carolina in the Stanley Cup Finals, after Peter Forsberg slipped a puck past Dominik Hasek in Game 5 in Detroit, putting the Avs up 3-2 with a chance to embalm the Wings in Denver a couple nights later.

But if the Avs have had a soft underbelly over the years, it has been the tendency to let up in such killer instinct specials. Just as they did in the 1999 Western finals against Dallas, the Avs blew a Game 6 at home, and had nothing left for Game 7.

The enduring images of the Avs' otherwise admirable season were Patrick Roy's botched Statue of Liberty save in Game 6, and his being yanked off the ice in a 7-0 humiliation in the Game 7 that will forever be known as the Motown Meltdown.

But Roy and Company say the bad memories have been freshly scrubbed, that there is only optimism for what lies ahead.

"I think we're all committed to winning again," says Roy, who set an NHL record for most games as a goalie (972) after his sixth game this season. "When I look back to last year, it's Game 6 that I remember most, not Game 7. That's where we lost the series. But I don't think that series will have any effect on us this season. It's over, and we're looking forward to this one."

Sakic, who needs 17 goals to hit the 500 mark, said he didn't think about the Motown Meltdown at all over the summer.

"It's over, you put it behind you," Sakic says. "This is a new season and I'm excited. We've got another good team that has a chance to win. That's all you can ask."

While talent remains in every nook and cranny of the Avs' locker room, it is the full-time return to action of Peter Forsberg that is most responsible for the increased arc in the smiles of Sakic and Roy.

Forsberg nearly upstaged everybody with his playoff performance last spring, which was the only time hockey fans saw him on skates all season. After missing the entire regular season with ankle problems, Forsberg joined Colorado for the postseason and led all NHL scorers with 27 points. If not for a broken pinkie finger in the final two games against Detroit, the Super Swede might have added a third championship ring to his hand.

But other than a chipped front tooth suffered right before training camp in a scrimmage, Forsberg entered his ninth season healthy and happy.

"I feel great, better than I have in a few years," Forsberg says. "I'm really looking forward to the season. Last year was tough all around for me, but things are better now."

Despite Detroit's new keeper of the Cup status, and a major talent infusion in Dallas thanks to Tom Hicks' wallet, it is the Avalanche many around the league still look at as the favorite in the West this year.

"I still think they've got the best goalie in the league in Roy, even though he had the bad seventh game in Detroit," says one Western Conference scout. "They've got some good young forwards coming up again, and Forsberg's back. They're still a tough nut to crack."

Indeed, Colorado's amazing youth pipeline over the years has again supplied some hot prospects up front, the best probably being 20-year-old winger Radim Vrbata, who scored 18 goals as a rookie. Vrbata is compared favorably to fellow Czech, Milan Hejduk, who remains just a pup at 25 and has fully recovered from the groin injury that rendered him about 80% effective in the playoffs.

Then there is 20-year-old Czech center Vaclav Nedorost, the 13th overall pick in the 2000 draft, who dramatically reduced his body fat over the summer and impressed everybody in camp. Winger prospect Jordan Krestanovich also had a good camp, and looks to be a sure-fire NHLer some day soon.

Add to the mix already proven young forwards Alex Tanguay and Steve Reinprecht, and Colorado should easily outpace the measly 212 goals it scored last season, especially if the new obstruction standards are enforced all year.