Wasn't Annunen scheduled to be the next franchise goalie for the Avs?
No, he was never seen that way.
In the AHL, Annunen has been average; he's a career .905 across 114 games. Last year Pavel Francouz was still under contract, but suffered what ended up being a career-ending injury in pre-season. Rather than turn to Annunen, Colorado claimed Ivan Prosvetov off waivers. Prosvetov is only 10 months older than Annunen, but the Avalanche were quick to gamble on a complete unknown (to the org) rather than give Annunen a chance right out of the gate.
Prosvetov ended up struggling and Annunen finally got the call in the 2nd half of last season. And he was
really solid. The only catch is that the Avalanche were super careful with who he started against. Only 2/12 starts by Annunen came against playoff teams, but the asterisk is one of those was Game 82 against Edmonton, which saw McDavid and all of the Oilers stars healthy scratched.
The bottom line is that Annunen was rock solid last year, but it was a talking point all off-season about how he'd fare against tougher competition. Unfortunately, we found out. His calling card last year was not giving up weak goals. This season has been the opposite. His lateral movement is so slow that teams have seemed to figure out they just need to get him moving side to side to beat him. Most fans were hopeful he could hold down the backup spot. But the more he played, the more his weaknesses were exposed.