When your head coach starts talking about bounces and the sometimes fortuitous, but more often than not, ill-fated nature of their existence, you know it's a serious sign of trouble.
According to Colorado Avalanche (15-16-8) head coach Patrick Roy, those very bounces are the difference between last year's 52-game winning, 112-point squad and this heartbreakingly abysmal season.
Talk has begun to build recently that, as a first step to making sure some of those bounces end up rolling the Avs' way on a more consistent basis, Roy and general manager Joe Sakic may be interested in adding some blueline help to their defensively deficient lineup.
But it won't be easy to do so. It may require the movement of a fairly major piece - a piece like forward Ryan O'Reilly - to make that happen.
It's a move the franchise is most likely reticent to make, but with his team now 7th in the seven-team Central, Roy may have seen enough unlucky bounces to put O'Reilly squarely on the trade block.
"...there have been suggestions out of Denver that Ryan O'Reilly is available. And if he is, that'll generate huge interest, it really will," TSN Insider Bob McKenzie said on Vancouver's TSN 1040 Tuesday morning, as transcribed by NicholsOnHockey.com.
O'Reilly, much like the entirety of the Avs team, isn't playing great hockey right now, but he has been steadily improving of late, perhaps just in time for the trade rumor mill to really kick into high gear.
Does he hear the trade talk?
"You never know what they're planning," O'Reilly said last week, according to Nick Groke of The Denver Post. "For me personally, I can't control any of that. It's just my play."
O'Reilly, when on his game, is a highly effective top-6 center that provides the kind of gritty, hard-nosed, blue-collar work NHL winners are built off of.
Per McKenzie, GMs league-wide will covet the 23-year-old both for his tremendous hockey IQ and his intensely competitive nature, meaning the return for his services will be considerable.
"So if he's available, there would be substantial interest and the price would be extremely high, and Colorado would try to get out of the slump they're in and they obviously need defensemen. There's no question about that," McKenzie said.
With the Avs being one of the worst defensive teams in the league - they're 24th in GAA and 25th in SA - it may behoove Roy and Sakic to move O'Reilly in exchange for the chance to acquire a potential franchise-saving - or at least, improving - defenseman.
