The big three-way deal that finally, at long last, after years of rumor, sent Matt Duchene out of Colorado for good happened on Nov. 5.

At the time, the Avs were 8-6-0 and seemed destined to be headed for another lost season in a competitive Central Division. Then they suffered another month of mostly losing hockey, and stood at just 12-13-2. Since then, however, they’ve cruised to a record of 24-16-3, meaning they’re 12-4-1 in the last 17 games (not including last night’s tilt hosting San Jose), including a seven-game win streak.

Only suffering four regulation losses in five weeks is, of course, exactly what teams should be trying to do, and it’s fair to say the Avs are as “on one” right now as any team in the league.

But what a lot of people have been talking about lately is how much the Duchene trade seems to have helped them (and how much it may have doomed the Senators; maybe Duchene is just cursed). For the record, Colorado’s return on that trade was incredible: A first-, second-, and third-round pick, high-end prospects from the NCAA and AHL, Andrew Hammond (so it’s not all wine and roses), and defenseman Samuel Girard.

Now you’ll notice a lot of that return is futures or a salary dump, with Girard being the only guy who’s going to be playing for the Avs the entire season. He’s a good young defender and seems to do a lot of things well, but he’s being used as their No. 5 right now, in terms of ice time. Patrik Nemeth plays an extra minute and a half a night moe than Girard does, but Girard is also 19 so he too should be seen as a future.

Point being, to ascribe much of Colorado’s success of late to the Duchene trade is silly because, a) it took them another month after the deal to actually start winning, b) it would be deeply weird if their success hinged on upgrading at the No. 5 spot, and c) you usually don’t improve by trading good players. (I would argue that Duchene was the second-best player in the three-way deal, behind Kyle Turris, but that’s beside the point.)

So the question is, if Duchene — who, just by the way, had 10 points in 14 games, on pace for almost 60 points, at the time he was traded — wasn’t the catalyst, something had to have been right?

The thing is, there’s isn’t much to suggest in any of the underlying numbers that this team had miraculously turned some sort of corner until very recently. The team was horrendous around the time of the trade but didn’t really start to improve much, process-wise, until a few weeks later. The results naturally followed.

Even excepting the recent numbers, which see the Avs regularly clearing 50 percent in expected goals for the last 16 games, there’s no denying Jared Bednar has his team playing better hockey than it did early in the season or for pretty much all of last year.

View photos

Colorado had the fourth-worst CF% at 5-on-5 in the league prior to the trade and were similarly challenged (or worse) in every other underlying category. By just about any metric, this was pretty close to a bottom-of-the-barrel team. Since the trade, they’re still not good (below 50 percent just about everywhere) but far more middle-of-the-pack in their not-goodness, which is a reflection of both how good they’ve been lately and how bad they were even in the first month after the trade.

So the thing to look at is, what changed around the middle of December? I’m sure you will be shocked to learn that the answer seems to be two things: They’re doing a little better in terms of shot quality, and a lot better in terms of actually putting the puck in the net and keeping it out. They’re getting a .950 save percentage at 5-on-5 since Dec. 15, good for third-highest in the league behind similarly streaking teams Calgary and Boston, as well as the second-highest shooting percentage, trailing only the Bruins.

Story continues