The Colorado Avalanche have Nathan MacKinnon, Cale Makar, Gabriel Landeskog, and Martin Necas as leaders of their forward core. Those players will be around for many years to come, and there is no rush to get their young talent into games.
That being said, throughout an NHL season, there will be some times where the young players have to step into the lineup and fill a role left behind by an injured veteran. Over the first couple of preseason games, Makar has missed time due to an injury. He participated fully in practice on Tuesday however, and should play in one of the two remaining preseason games to close out the exhibition portion.
On the offensive side, Cale’s brother, Taylor, has seen a fair amount of action. He even scored a goal in Monday night’s game.
The younger Makar expects to have a role with the Avalanche for some games during the 2026-27 season, and he mentioned a key phase of the game in which he wants to help the team.
Asked Taylor Makar about becoming a PK specialist, he’s gotten opportunity on the PK in Loveland and finished 1:27 SH TOI tonight:
— Meghan Angley (@megangley) September 21, 2026
“That's exactly what I want to be. I look up to Parker Kelly, O.C., guys like that, that just work so hard. That’s a huge part of the team come…
The Avalanche finished as the best in the league on the penalty kill, killing off 84.6% of penalties. Second was the Chicago Blackhawks at 83.6%. The Avalanche’s PK is led by Logan O’Connor, Parker Kelly, Devon Toews and Brent Burns on the first grouping. The second grouping consists of Brock Nelson, Artturi Lehkonen, Josh Manson and Cale Makar.
As a forward, if Taylor Makar were to step in on the penalty kill, he would likely start out on the second grouping, replacing either Nelson or Lehkonen. I think that it would really just be in an emergency at this point.
If the younger Makar were to crack the Avalanche lineup at sine point, it would likely be due to a bottom-six injury. I would see him as a bottom-three player right now simply because of his inexperience. He would have to work his way up to the third line if he ever got there. For more on Makar, Nestor Quixtan took a more in-depth look at him on Monday.
Gavin Brindley is another name that fans should be looking at. Brindley played in 56 games for the Avalanche last season, putting up six goals and seven assists. Unfortunately he spent the rest of the season with the AHL Eagles following the Avs’ March 22nd game against the Washington Capitals.
Brindley is also an option on the fourth line as a fill-in, though he could carve out a stronger role during training camp battles. Despite his small stature, he cracks the article because he is a young player who has shown he could belong at the NHL level at some point.
Fedor Svechkov is another player who could make a strong impact with the Avalanche and be a part of their future. At 23-years-old, Svechkov is a former first-round pick of the Nashville Predators wh the Avs acquired in a trade that gave their division opponent Jack Drury and Chase Bradley. Zachary L’Heureux was also sent to Colorado in that same trade.
Svechkov has 12 goals and 22 assists in 122 career NHL games. That’s not the most amazing stat line out there, especially for a former first-round pick. The hope is that the change of scenery will unlock a new level of Svechkov’s play.
He has an average penalty minutes per game of .295. In 2024-25, he had 14 penalty minutes in 52 games, while in 2025-26, he had 22 minutes in 70 games. He’ll want to focus on getting those numbers down.
The last player I’ll talk about here is forward T.J. Hughes. Hughes was signed as a college free agent by the Avalanche last season and spent two games with the Eagles, recording a goal and an assist.
While at Michigan, Hughes played in 156 games and recorded 69 goals and 110 assists. Needless to say, he was a point machine in college. Many believe that Hughes has a legitimate chance at cracking the Avalanche’s opening-night roster—in fact, he might have the best chance.
The Avalanche don’t have to worry about losing its core for a fair amount of time, but the idea that they have some strong talent across the system going forward is music to Avs fans’ ears. A team that recently was viewed as having one of the worst pipelines in all of the NHL might have gotten a lot better as of late. Their future selves could be thanking them their current selves.
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