The Colorado Avalanche are your Presidents’ trophy winner for the 2025-26 season. This comes after their 3-1 victory on Thursday night against the Calgary Flames.
The game was official once Nathan MacKinnon got his second assist with just seconds left.
This season‘s start was obviously remarkable for the Avalanche. They started out 5-1 in their first six games. Despite losing four games in a row immediately after that start, they won 26 of their next 30 games.
As does every team, the Avalanche had to miss some key players at various times in the season. They didn’t have Mackenzie Blackwood for the first part of the season, as he underwent surgery in the offseason that required more time to heal. His first start was on November 1st, a loss to the Sharks in overtime.
Cale Makar is the biggest name who has missed some time. However, at this stage in the season, the team wants him healthy for the postseason, so there is no sense in playing him in most of the remaining regular season games. However, he is expected to play again before the season ends.
Scott Wedgewood has been remarkable to the point that it’s hard to leave him out of Vezina trophy consideration. He has a 29-6-6 record so far this season, as he has taken on what most would call the starting role in place of Blackwood. Wedgewood has a goals-against average of 2.10 and a save percentage of .918. His save percentage ranks first in the NHL for goalies with an extended amount of starts. The only goalies ahead of him have started less than five games.
Nathan MacKinnon is having himself another incredible year, too. He surpassed the 50-goal mark for the second time in his career, and his fourth-straight 100-point season. MacKinnon has also torched his previous shooting percentage career-high. He is a top candidate for the Hart trophy, given to the player who is deemed the most valuable to his team.
Head coach Jared Bednar should get some recognition for the Jack Adams award, given to the league’s best coach. Despite the injuries the team has had, he’s still managed to get the Avs to be a consistent winner.
Something that might hurt his chance is the team’s recent loss to the league-worst Vancouver Canucks on April 1st, where they lost 8-6. However, in the long-run, that game was just a minor hiccup in the process.
Captain Gabriel Landeskog is another player that fans were excited to see play. After three full seasons rehabbing a devastating knee injury, he made it back for some postseason action last year, and started this regular season. Though he missed some action due to several other unrelated injuries, his overall comeback cannot go unnoticed.
The Avalanche still have a couple of games remaining in the regular season, but they’ve locked up what they’ve needed to heading into the postseason. Now, we’ll get to see what this team is made of.