On June 26, 2022, the Colorado Avalanche were named Stanley Cup champions after their Game 6 victory over the Tampa Bay Lightning. It was their third Stanley Cup win in franchise history. Their general manager at the time was Joe Sakic. Just a couple of weeks later, on July 11th, Joe Sakic passed his general manager title to assistant general manager Chris MacFarland while taking on a higher role.
It appeared to be clear Sakic had a vision in this decision he could have gone external and hired someone who wasn’t already on theIt was a sort of promotion for the Avalanche Hall of Fame player while allowing MacFarland to have his shot at one of the most important jobs on a sports team’s staff. Being a general manager is no easy task. You have to build on what you have as a team already, and some teams have so much work to do that their rosters are completely turned over within a couple of years. Well, in football, anyway.
All eyes are on MacFarland, especially this upcoming season. Heck, even before the season begins, he’s got work to do. Here are three things he has to do to prove himself this season.
Managing the salary cap
In the NHL, one of the big challenges is how to manage the salary cap. It’s nowhere near as much as other sports, though it is increasing year by year. It is going to be $95.5 million in the 2025-26 season.
The Avalanche have $8.7 million to spend, which is the sixth-lowest in all of the NHL. They traded away Mikko Rantanen, who was in need of a new contract, but the Avalanche still had to sign Cale Makar. They couldn’t do both, so they took their star defenseman.
They have several roster spots to fill, due to the unlikelihood of being able to re-sign more than one of their bigger free agents. Brock Nelson’s name has been floating around as their big free agent likely to leave, and Jonathan Drouin could also leave, but I wrote recently how I felt that Drouin should stay at least one more year in Denver. Joel Kiviranta is another guy who is scheduled to be a free agent, but I also wrote about him. He needs to stay.
MacFarland tried going all-in this year by acquiring Nelson, Necas, Charlie Coyle, Ryan Lindgren, Mackenzie Blackwood, and Scott Wedgewood. Some moves I really loved (Blackwood), and some I wasn’t a big fan of (Wedgewood for Justus Annunen and shipping Calum Ritchie away for Nelson). I’ve been proven wrong so far, but the fact that the Avalanche are likely to lose Brock Nelson after just one hurts.
There’s never any concern about teams getting under the salary cap when the season begins. The concern is about how they go about it. We’ll have to wait and see how all of that unfolds.
The future of the Avalanche’s prospect pool
I just mentioned how I was not a fan of the team moving Calum Ritchie. However, You have to give something of potential up for a strong piece to your own puzzle. What hurts is that Nelson might not be on the team next year, and even if he is, he’s in his mid-30s, while Ritchie is at the start of his career.
One thing I really liked that MacFarland did last year was add three goaltenders in the NHL Draft. Their top goalie prospect, Ilya Nabokov, was already signed to an ELC recently, and hopefully we get to see him perform in the AHL with the Eagles next year before he makes his stop into the NHL. They obviously are very high on Nabokov. I don’t think I’ve heard a single bad thing said about him.
This past season, we did see several Eagles players get called up and play some games for the Avalanche. Though a lot of those decisions were based off of the fact that the team was injured, we got to see some pretty solid outings by some players. One of them was Nikita Prischepov, who played 10 games for the team in two stints this past year. While he never did record a goal nor assist with the Avalanche,
Keaton Middleton is a player who had a ton of opportunities to impress last season, playing 41 games last year. A defenseman, Middleton won’t be impactful on the scoresheet, but brings a dominant physical presence to the team, something that I’m a huge fan of.
Getting back to MacFarland, we’ve got to see some more of his draft selections make an impact with the Eagles and Avalanche in upcoming years. The team only has two draft picks in this year’s draft, which hurts, but they’ve got plenty in the future.
The future of the Colorado Avalanche’s 2C
Like I mentioned, the Avalanche very likely will lose Brock Nelson in free agency. Even if they don’t, he’s 33 years old and won’t be around forever. It woul be wise for the team to look at options even if Nelson somehow comes back.
Charlie Coyle is the team’s 3C, but is he an option to move up a line full-time? I’m not sure. It would make sense to have one of the other second-line players shift over to 2C and the team could fill that player’s old spot with someone else. It’s not as if they can go out and pay big money for a 2C replacement. It’s just not possible at this point.
While Coyle is currently listed as the 2C on PuckPedia, I’m in favour of Brennan Vogt of Hockey Mountain High’s idea: Put Ross Colton in that vacant spot. He’s already shown that he can manage being on a top-six line.
Though he doesn’t have a high faceoff success rate (40.2 percent last year), the Avalanche as a team aren’t great at that part of their game. While winning faceoffs is important, they don’t tell the whole story of how a team wins. Being a center means being in the midst of the action, and is not all about faceoffs, so I don’t view it as much of a concern going forward. Each spot has their role, faceoff win or not. I think Colton would be a good fit there.
If he ends up to be, MacFarland will look like a genius for not overpaying for an outside 2C. here’s to hoping!