The Colorado Avalanche will hit this upcoming season looking to build on last year’s Western Conference Final appearance. Yes, making it all the way to the third round was great. But it wasn’t good enough considering the historic regular season the team had.
And that’s just the thing. The Avalanche are coming off a Presidents’ Trophy win in which the club led the league from wire to wire. There were no peaks and troughs. The Avalanche were the NHL’s best team from start to finish.
Of course, there were a couple of speedbumps along the way. That’s to be expected.
But there’s something the Avalanche must pay careful attention to this season. It’s a concerning trend that has derailed two great teams. That trend is missing the playoffs after a Presidents’ Trophy season.
In 2023-24, the New York Rangers had a fantastic season. They were the best regular-season team and made it all the way to the Western Conference Final. They fell to the eventual champions, the Florida Panthers.
The next season, splat. The Rangers missed the postseason, and eventually hurtled into a rebuild.
In 2024-25, the Winnipeg Jets ran away with the Central Division. No one in the NHL even came close to catching the Jets during the franchise’s best season. They made it to the second round, but just couldn’t slay the dragon.
Last season, the Jets sputtered. Instead of flying like an F-35, they floundered around like a rickety old biplane.
Could that be the fate that befalls the Avalanche? History could point towards that direction.
Avalanche don’t have recent history on their side
Prior to the Rangers’ shocking playoff miss in 2024-25, only a handful of teams had gone from the league’s best to a playoff miss within one season. Then, the phenomenon has occurred twice in the last two seasons.
That’s a disturbing inclination that the Avalanche have to end. On the one hand, there is a sense of complacency that hits some teams. They feel overly confident, thinking that success can just transfer from one season to the next on autopilot.
That’s why the Avs must work even harder this upcoming season. Making the playoffs and winning a couple of rounds will not suffice. It’s Stanley Cup or bust this season. Even if Colorado doesn’t repeat as Presidents’ Trophy champions, the goal is a winning 16 postseason games.
Colorado has been through plenty of adversity
One of the things that has characterized the Avalanche has been adversity. The club has been through some extremely painful moments. The first-round elimination at the hands of the Seattle Kraken in 2023 still hurts.
Getting bounced by the Dallas Stars and Mikko Rantanen in 2025 is very present in fans’ minds. Last year’s elimination by the Vegas Golden Knights is something that likely haunts the Avalanche’s dreams.
The silver lining of those dreadful experiences is that the club can draw from them. They can fuel the desire to avoid the angst that comes from going home empty-handed after a long playoff run.
If anything, what we want to be writing about at this time next season is how the Avalanche are in pursuit of back-to-back Stanley Cup championships.
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