Chris Drury: The Avs' Totally Hot Ex-Girlfriend
photo courtesy ClassicBuffalo.com
Adrian Dater, Denver Post hockey beat writer and friend of DLS, offers the love letter he thinks Avs management should send to Chris Drury on July 1st. They should treat Dru like a jilted ex-lover, Dater says, like the hottest chick that ever managed to fall in love with you but you somehow dumped anyway.
We can admit this now. We’re big enough to say it. We just want you back, Chris, or, if we can indulge, “Druuuuu”. We want those playoff game-winners back, that John Wayne leadership strut that has a way of making just about every team you’ve ever played on become a champion at some point.
We had a good thing going with you, and we blew it. Those other people we’ve hung our shingle on since don’t add up to the square root of Sweet Fanny Adam compared to you.
But is Drury really worth that much to the Avalanche now? First, he'd be prohibitively expensive, somewhere in the $5-7 million range, easily. Second, he's a natural center, and the Avs already have two great centers in Joe Sakic and Paul Son Of Stastny. It wouldn't make sense to stick Drury on the third line, nor would it do Young Paul any favors, either. Drury on the wing would work to a certain extent, but he's a scoring center and works best down low in the slot.
Now, that said, Sakic isn't going to play forever, and when he goes so does his salary. Lock up Drury with a long-term contract now and you've got a replacement for Stastny on the second line when the young one eventually takes over for Quoteless. This is all just hypothetical, of course, but worth thinking about. And anyway, if you're going to blow $6 million on a center you don't necessarily need right this minute, better Drury than over-the-hill and down-in-the-ankles Peter Forsberg. His time in Denver has passed.
But again, who knows if Drury would even want to come back after the Avs dumped him to Calgary a few years back? I wouldn't blame him for dissing them this time around..
