2026 Elimination Eval: Colorado Avalanche

It may feel like the Colorado Avalanche are recent Stanley Cup Champions, but as they say in hockey, it gets late early. For a team that went down two games to none quickly in Round 3 and were swept out of the Western Conference Final, that saying only rings louder. Their championship in 2022 may have only been four years ago, but for the fourth oldest team in the league, time is of the essence.

Expectations

Across two of the last three postseasons, the Avalanche were first round exits. In 2024, they made it as far as the Conference Semifinal, but still couldn’t handle the Dallas Stars. The expectation heading into this season was certainly to make notable progress and, ideally, go on a deeper playoff run. In that sense, they accomplished what they set out to. However, by Colorado’s standards, it still wasn’t enough. 

To prepare for this season, the Avalanche didn’t do a ton over the summer. They made some depth signings like Parker Kelly, Alex Bare-Boulet, and Victor Olofsson, who they ended up including in the big trade to reacquire Nazem Kadri. They also signed veteran Brent Burns to a one-year deal, extended Josh Manson on a two-year deal, and got Martin Necas signed to a long term extension of eight years carrying an AAV of $11.5 million. 

On the trade front, the Avalanche made the big move in sending Samuel Girard to Pittsburgh along with a second round pick to acquire Brett Kulak. In hindsight, I’m not sure that was in Colorado’s best interest. If Kulak re-signs, maybe it's fine. But otherwise, that’s going to be a huge swing and a miss. Additionally, they gave up a first round pick (and a fifth) for Nic Roy on a favorable contract along with a fourth to acquire Nick Blankenburg. For what Colorado was setting out to accomplish, this was all fine business. Moving forward, they’re running out of assets. 

Series Recap

Colorado’s series with the Los Angeles Kings was the first Round 1 matchup to come to an end. To no one’s surprise, it was the Avalanche that not only won, but swept the Kings in dominant fashion. Despite L.A. scoring the first goal of the series, tallies from Artturi Lehkonen and Logan O’Connor secured a 2-1 win in Game 1 to take an early lead in the series. After winning by the same score in Game 2, the Avalanche hit the road where the Kings would mount one last attempt to make this a series. Instead, an early goal from Gabriel Landeskog, and two unanswered from Cale Makar and Lehkonen set up a 4-2 win, solidified by a Brock Nelson empty netter. Colorado would take a 2-1 lead into the final period of this series and three unanswered from Nic Roy, Devon Toews, and Nathan MacKinnon put a quick end to Los Angeles’ postseason. 

From there, it was on to Round 2 where they’d take on the Minnesota Wild. 

If there was any team that was going to give the Avalanche a run for their money—other than Vegas, apparently—it looked to be the Minnesota Wild. Game 1 brought utter chaos as the two teams combined for 15 goals. Colorado started strong with three unanswered, and despite Minnesota’s constant attempts to tie the game, the Avalanche stayed one step ahead of them until the third period when they ran away with it. Game 2 would be more mild as an early second period goal from Roy gave the Avs some insurance, and a pair from MacKinnon and Valeri Nichuschkin solidified the score 5-2. 

In hindsight, that Game 2 win in Round 2 was likely the high moment for Colorado. At that point it felt like they were going to have the type of cake walk to the Cup Final that we’re seeing with the Carolina Hurricanes, and that no one was going to get in their way. Then of course, the Minnesota Wild had an answer. A pair of goals late in the opening period put the Avs behind and two more in the second made it a 4-1 game. MacKinnon would have the only goal in a 5-1 loss, which came on the power play. 

The Avalanche got right back to work in Game 4 as they surged for three goals plus an empty netter to come from behind and beat the Wild 5-2. Another candidate for the high moment of these playoffs for Colorado was Game 5, as they erased a 3-0 deficit to force the Wild to overtime where Brett Kulak picked the perfect time to be the hero. Not only was it his first playoff overtime game winning goal, but it saved him and his teammates from having to travel back to Minnesota, which for Kulak and his family was important as his daughter's birthday party was the next day. 

Round 3 of these playoffs would not go according to Colorado's plan for a number of reasons, and the real game changing moment behind that was that injuries absolutely impacted this Colorado team. Cale Makar suffered an injury late in Game 5, which kept him out of the lineup for the start of this series. While he would return in Game 3, it was Nathan MacKinnon blocking a shot which left his status for Game 4 in question. 

The Avalanche trailed 2-0 heading into the third period of Game 1, and Brett Howden quickly scored in the third to make it 3-0. Despite a pair of goals from Nichuschkin and Landeskog, Nic Dowd picked up the empty netter for Vegas to secure the Game 1 win on the road, tipping the advantage in Vegas’ favor. Despite Ross Colton giving the Avalanche a 1-0 lead after the second period of Game 2, Jack Eichel and Ivan Barbashev scored in a span of two minutes midway through the third to completely change this game around. Barbashev added another with the net empty to take a 3-1 win back to Vegas. 

Even though Colorado trailed by two games, it was still Colorado, the reigning President's Trophy winners. There wasn’t a doubt they’d be capable of stealing a game on the road, winning back at home, and turning this into a series. Until of course, there was doubt. Makar returned for Game 3, but they’d go on to lose MacKinnon, or at least lose him at 100 percent capacity. This game was the clear low point, as the Avalanche were up 3-0 heading into the second period. Then Mark Stone scored 19 seconds into the second. William Karlsson added another four minutes later. And, just like that, Keegan Kolesar tied it a three midway through. Tomas Hertl gave Vegas the go ahead tally, as Brett Howden scored his 10th(?!) goal of the postseason onto an empty net, threatening the series sweep. 

It all came to an end on home ice in Game 4. The Avalanche allowed an early goal from Mark Stone, and Cole Smith built on it later in the third period. Despite their best efforts and Gabe Landeskog bringing them within one with two minutes to go, the Avalanche didn’t have enough in them to pull off the comeback and their season came to a disappointing finish. 

Prediction

I had Colorado going all the way to the Cup Final and winning it all. I know I’m far from the only person to make that safe bet and have my bracket play out that way, so I’d definitely be lying if I said I saw this coming. At the same time, it’s the Stanley Cup Playoffs. Anything can happen, and oftentimes it’s not the best team, per se, that goes on to win it all. It’s often the best team that can also stay healthy, stay true to their game, and get some luck along the way. Vegas, as annoying as it is, is doing all of that. 

Was the Season a Success?

This season was certainly a shortcoming in Colorado, as anything outside another Stanley Cup championship would have to be considered a failure. Not only is the team not getting any younger, but it’s hard not to look at this roster and view them as one of, if not the best team’s they’ve pieced together since winning it all just four seasons ago. 

UFAs/RFAs

The good news is that Colorado doesn’t have many irreplaceable names at risk of hitting the open market this summer, but that doesn’t mean there won’t be holes.

Their pending UFAss are mainly defenseman, save for Joel Kiviranta and Alex Bare-Boulet. Brett Kulak, Brett Burns, and Nick Blankenburg are among the most notable names that leave a ton of question marks on the blue line. There’s a chance they re-up with the Avalanche, but unless they value winning and still think Colorado is capable, they’d be stupid not to test free agency. Given this free agent class, they could surely make generational money on the open market as there are so few options. 

As far as RFAs, they only have Jack Drury and Zakhar Bardakov to worry about. I’m sure both will sign to reasonable extensions, unless of course the Rangers try and bring their general manager’s nephew to New York?

Biggest Question Moving Forward

This is going to be an obvious, potentially stupid question: What do you do now?

Barring some sort of magic run from a team like Buffalo, Anaheim, or Montreal (which I suppose in their case is still technically possible) it really felt like this was Colorado’s year to lose. They were far and away the best team in the league. You had MacKinnon, Makar, and Toews starving for revenge after losing to Team USA in the Olympics. It’s hard to imagine a scenario in which they’d have an easier route to a Stanley Cup, and their team isn’t getting any younger.

A more specific question is, does this earlier than expected end to the season result in some sort of big change? Jared Bednar has been running this team since 2016 and, aside from the Cup in 2022, doesn’t have a ton to show for it. Chris McFarland took over as general manager after 2022 when Joe Sakic moved up into the team president role. Has his efforts across the last four seasons warranted him enough job security to chalk this season up to just bad luck? At the end of the day, injuries played a massive role in why this season was a shortcoming. But when you have standards as high as Colorado, you have to hold everyone accountable.  

Projected Lineup 

Lehkonen - MacKinnon - Landeskog
Kadri - Nelson - Necas
Colton - Roy - O’Connor
Kelly - Drury* - Bardakhov*

Toews - Makar
? - Malinski
? - Manson

Blackwood - Wedgewood

Next in line:

• Forwards: Gavin Brindley, Christian Humphreys 
• Defenseman: Seah Behrens

(*-RFAs) (^-UFAs)

Final Thoughts

At the end of the day, this is the Colorado Avalanche we’re talking about. They have MacKinnon, Makar, Toews, Landeskog, and Necas. They’ll be fine. Probably. Not to mention, all their recent additions are—for the most part—still under contract next season. When push comes to shove, if they want to get another championship under their belts, they can’t just sit idly by and expect them to continue to get that opportunity, year in and year out. At the same time, they don’t have a ton of roster flexibility as so many guys are signed with trade protection. 

That shifts the conversation to the front office. Do you explore a coaching change, perhaps a general manager change? Or do you trust the process and see what sort of ideas McFarland has to reshape the team’s blue line and run it back with this core? This is what I had to say about them this time last year:

The Avalanche are still at least another year or two away from being in panic mode. They have a good core on defense, one of the best top line centers and top pair defensemen in the league, and a solid supporting cast… With the right additions in the off-season, this team could really put themselves in a great position and should be viewed as a top-tier team as they run it back next year.

Well here we are one year later. I wouldn’t necessarily say they should be in panic mode just yet but the time to be concerned is definitely here. Two years in a row, they lost to the Dallas Stars. The one year they don’t have to worry about running into them, they get taken out by Vegas. At what point is Colorado no longer the powerhouse they’re regarded as?

This summer, as well as next season’s trade deadline will be huge tests for them but if we’re having similar conversations this time next year, especially if we’re having them earlier, the mood is going to change very quickly.