"The Avalanche's season so far has featured surprises, rejuvenations, more surprises - and the Mysterious Case of Wojtek Wolski.
Going into the Avalanche's home game Saturday against Detroit, the 23-year-old Wol- ski was Colorado's leading scorer, with 10 points on five goals and five assists, while playing left wing. Yet it's clear that his occasional lack of fire, sustained effort and grit, and even his decision-making with the puck, have exasperated first-year coach Joe Sacco.
Joel Quenneville and Tony Granato, Sacco's predecessors, were similarly frustrated with Wolski in his previous four seasons. In 2008-09, Wolski was terrific in his first few games at his natural position, center, during the Avalanche injury siege, seemingly heralding that he was destined to play - and perhaps even star - at the position. But he fizzled from there, finishing with a modest 14 goals and 42 points in 78 games.
The Avalanche's sudden abundance of young talent at center (holdover Paul Stastny, plus teenage rookies Matt Duchene and Ryan O'Reilly) makes it likely that Wolski mainly will be a winger for the foreseeable future. There's nothing inherently "wrong" with that, as long as he fulfills his potential at whatever forward spot he's playing.
Sacco's unhappiness with Wolski has been ill-concealed, despite Wolski's statistical success.
At times, Wolski doesn't seem to be all there and lacks a willingness to take punishment or otherwise do the proverbial price-paying. That can be even more maddening when the skater in question plays "smaller" than his stature - Wolski is 6-feet-3 and 210 pounds - and he doesn't seem to be taking advantage of what most concede is abundant talent. That talent even showed up in shootouts, where he was the league's best last season, going 10-for-12. This season, he was 0-for-2 through Friday's game.
Sacco has been more than willing to use Wolski to make a precedent-setting point in his first season on the job, and he has done so with several third-period virtual benchings of Wolski, including in the third period at Nashville and at Detroit during the first road trip.
"There's a big upside to Wolski," Sacco said Friday. "Like I've said from Day One, we're trying to create an identity as a team here. And that's as a hardworking, energetic team that's difficult to play against. You have to kind of fit into that, just like the 18 or 19 other guys who are playing in that particular game.
"I think he's had spurts where he's been good and spurts where he's been mediocre. It's a matter of consistency. It's a matter of being that every game. I know I'm repeating myself, but I'm playing the guys during the course of a game that give us the best chance to win. If certain guys aren't going and I don't think he's helping our team, then he's not going to play."
In his politically correct and unemotional responses when asked about the benchings in the past two weeks, Wolski has sounded as if
