I’m going to go with he’s legitimately a breakthrough young player. After all, he’s a former first-round pick and you have to be at least decent to be one of those, right? This camp and preseason has proven that Shane Bowers — yet another piece in the “Great Sakic-ian Steal of 2017” that sent Duchene out to pasture while the Avs collected the likes of Sam Girard, Bowen Byram and the aforementioned Bowers — is really not too far off from the NHL after all.
The Avs are now a very deep team, and I think a lot of people are just now seeing that for the first time because, well, it’s the first time they’ve had the chance to.