3 reasons Colorado Avalanche should be higher on recent list
Although preseason has begun, the real games haven’t yet, and that means that off-season type rankings and ratings articles are still prevalent. Lists of best this or best that are always popular topics, and ESPN recently rated, and the DNVR podcast recently spoke about, rating NHL teams from best to worst over the next three seasons. They considered things like current rosters and current farm systems as well as front offices and cap situations. The top ten teams may surprise you, with the Devils finishing 1st. The Hughes brothers, a second-round playoff exit, a 100-point season, and a lot of expectations helped the Devils in this rating. More importantly as related to this specific article and discussion is where the Colorado Avalanche ranked in this discussion.
Spoiler alert here, they were not even listed in the top 10 teams! The Avalanche were rated 11th best over the next three seasons. There are likely several reasons for this, none of which are accurate of course.
The Avalanche should be a clear top 10 choice for many reasons. Arguing over this is likely trivial, however, it’s clear it needs to happen. The pluses for the Avalanche far outweigh the negatives, and the likeliness they fall back into the middle of the pack or worse over the next few years is slim to none when all things are considered.
There are a multitude of reasons why Colorado isn’t going anywhere over the next several seasons to include many that won’t even make this specific list.
However ridiculous the article may be, it may behoove the Avalanche to develop their farm system a bit further and couldn’t hurt to tidy up their salary cap situation. It appears that may be in the works with some rumors coming of late, as well as regular season rosters needing to be finalized over the next several weeks.
Why are the Avalanche unjustly listed at #11 in these rankings?
The rating scale is skewed.
ESPN considers farm systems and other things that cannot necessarily be accounted for with certainty. Each year the NHL has a trade deadline, and during the weeks leading up to the deadline (typically) there are all sorts of trades and roster moves made for contending teams to shore up their rosters for the playoffs, or teams that are out of contention to attempt to stockpile draft picks or young players and build for the future.
There’s no way the Columbus Blue Jackets have a better prognostication over the next three years than the Colorado Avalanche (The Jackets are ranked 9th in this list). They may have a better farm system, Adam Fantilli comes to mind, but what else can they offer that Colorado isn’t better at. Columbus has Johnny Ham and Cheese Gaudreau and he’s an excellent player, but the Avalanche have Nathan MacKinnon. The Avalanche have a reliable coaching situation as opposed to the Blue Jackets’ which is currently a dumpster fire, to put it nicely. The Avalanche roster as currently constructed is head and shoulders ahead of where the Blue Jackets are.
With all that said, is ESPN placing that much value on the current farm system of teams? A lot of young players currently in the minor leagues won’t even be in the NHL on a regular basis within three years. The Avalanche core players outclass the Blue Jackets core ten times out of ten.
The Avalanche have improved their team in other ways
The article accounts for current rosters and current farm systems. Whether the Avalanche farm system is prepared to produce NHL talent within three years has already been discussed, and it’s probably not likely to occur.
The Avalanche have improved in other ways, however. Chris MacFarland strikes me as a bit of a mad scientist while sitting in the wheelhouse running the Avalanche. He’s had to do some gymnastics to navigate the cap of late, and those continue, but he’s also been able to improve the team through trades and free agent signings.
When Darcy Kuemper left after the team won the Stanley Cup, he went out and traded for Alexandar Georgiev, who’s been more than serviceable as the starting goalie. The Bulgarian born netminder posted 5 shutouts with a 2.51 goals against over 62 games for Colorado last season.
MacFarland traded Alex Newhook, a 2019 first rounder, for two draft picks in this year’s draft. He then immediately traded the 37th pick to Tampa Bay for the rights to Ross Colton, who he then proceeded to sign to a four-year contract. Although the jury is still out on Colton’s impact, he should shore up the bottom six for Colorado this year and beyond.
To quell the critics of their farm system, MacFarland drafted young Russian defenseman Mikhail Gulyayev with the 31st pick that was obtained in the Newhook deal.
To top all of those, the Avalanche were able to obtain first round pick Ryan Johansen effectively for a bag of hockey pucks this off-season (no disrespect to Alex Galchenyuk). If Johansen is anywhere near his 21-22 production levels, the Avalanche will have greatly improved at a fraction of a cost. Copious amounts of time on the 1st power-play unit likely await Johansen, along with vastly improved team offensive play, and those in turn should allow him to equal or surpass the 63 points he scored in 21-22.
The Colorado Avalanche excel in categories that cannot be measured
The hockey pundits, both players and fans alike, all say that Lord Stanley’s chalice is the most difficult trophy to win in all of sport. To win the trophy, a team has to win 16 games in an extremely condensed time frame, all the while battling injuries, fatigue, travel, and anything else that gets in their way.
In the last 4 years, three teams have won the Stanley Cup, with the Avalanche being one of them. It’s likely still fresh in Avs fans’ minds. That means they were able to battle through all these factors and still hoist the Cup. The Golden Knights, who finished 8th on this ranking list, won the Cup last year. Tampa Bay, who won the previous two cups before the Avs knocked them off in 2022, did not make the list.
A team must learn how to win in the playoffs. The Devils are getting there. The other teams on this list cannot say the same.
It can’t be taken away that the core of the Avalanche have the experience and have lifted the Cup- they know what it takes. The core is still relatively young. The core of the team (MacKinnon, Makar, Rantanen, Toews, Byrum, Nichushkin, Colton) are all under 28. They’ve got plenty left in the tank and won’t be going away anytime soon. Although they’ll have to dance through some cap issues potentially, they’ve got the potential and ability to make several more runs. If Makar wasn’t out last season in the playoffs who knows how that would have gone.
Think back to the Blackhawks of the 2010s led by Kane and Toews. They won three cups in 6 seasons. They had many similar pieces in similar places to what the Colorado Avalanche have. The Avalanche have one won Cup already, and when healthy, must be one of the favorites to hoist it again, not only this year, but over the next handful of seasons as well.