After weeks of wondering will he or won’t he, and an announcement that he won’t, Peter Forsberg signed with the Avalanche Monday afternoon through the rest of this season. While this is exciting news for Avs fans, there are more of us than not that are hopeful rather than confident. Forsberg has been battling ankle injuries for years, and even went through 30 pairs of skates recently in an attempt to find one pair that would ease his discomfort when skating. Now don’t get me wrong, I am going to love seeing that #21 Avalanche jersey back on the ice, hopefully sometime soon. The Avalanche are in desperate need of a shot in the arm, even though Joe Sakic was able to return Sunday night. As of right now, they are 4 points out of the final playoff spot in the West, but there are 19 games remaining, and the next two are against division foes ahead of them in the standings. Needless to say, the Avs have a lot of work to do in the final weeks of the season, but it’s not an impossible feat.
Now that he has officially signed, we can start to speculate what the forward lines will look like. A lot of this will be determined by the health of Forsberg. Will he be able to play top 6 minutes? If so, the Avalanche currently have top talented centers in Sakic and Stastny, and with Forsberg being a natural center, do the Avs move him to wing? Maybe a top 6 of Smyth, Stastny, and Hejduk and Forsberg, Sakic, and Svatos. Or do the Avs try to balance it over three lines with keeping pairs together? Sakic/Brunette, Stastny/Smyth, Forsberg/Hejduk perhaps.
Whatever the case, this team has its work cut out for them in the final 19 games. I am going to remain optimistic and hopeful. Hopeful for a strong finish, a playoff birth, a healthy return by Forsberg, and a packed
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