Slowly but surely, we are getting closer to hockey season. The Colorado Avalanche had their Stanley Cup hopes squashed against the Dallas Stars in a devastating Game 6, double-overtime heartbreaker. We’ve made it through these past couple of months with some (but not enough) news. Really, it’s sometimes a slow period of time but that’s just the way it goes.
When it comes to the 2024-25 Colorado Avalanche, we want to know several things, such as who will fill out the rest of the roster? What does the team’s 2024-25 schedule look like? We’ll take a look at the latter question here right now.
The Colorado Avalanche’s season begins on October 9
● Colorado Avalanche @ Vegas Golden Knights, 8 pm MT
● Columbus Blue Jackets @ Colorado Avalanche, October 12, 7 pm MT
● New York Islanders @ Colorado Avalanche, October 14, 7pm MT
● Boston Bruins @ Colorado Avalanche, October 16, 7:30pm MT
● Anaheim Ducks @ Colorado Avalanche, October 18, 7pm MT
● Colorado Avalanche @ San Jose Sharks, October 20, 2pm MT
● Colorado Avalanche @ Seattle Kraken, October 22, 8:30pm MT
● Colorado Avalanche @ Utah HC, October 24, 7pm MT
● Ottawa Senators @ Colorado Avalanche, October 27, 7pm MT
● Chicago Blackhawks @ Colorado Avalanche, October 28, 7pm MT
● Tampa Bay Lightning @ Colorado Avalanche, October 30, 7pm MT
To start out the 2024-25 season, the Avalanche head to Las Vegas to take on the Golden Knights. Colorado finished nine points ahead of the Golden Knights last season. By the sounds of it, it doesn’t appear that Vegas will have their top draft pick, Trevor Connelly, as he isrumoured to be going to the NCAA this season. I’m interested to see if Tomas Hertl, acquired by the Golden Knights last year, can rebound from a knee surgery. Vegas has Jack Eichel, who scored 31 goals for them last year.
Next up is Columbus. The Avalanche have defeated the Blue Jackets in 3 of their last five meetings. Last season, Kirill Marchenko led the team in goals with 23, while Johnny Gaudreau led in points with 60. The Blue Jackets were not a good team last year, finishing last in the Metropolitan Division and a score differential of -63. Oof. That was the fourth-worst differential in the entire league last season.
On October 14, the Avalanche host the New York Islanders, and here comes the return of the best goaltender in NHL history, Patrick Roy, who was hired as the Islanders’ head coach in 2023. The Islanders finished third in the Metropolitan Division last year with 94 points. That’s not bad. Brock Nelson led the Islanders in goals last year with 34. He has played in every game over the last two seasons. Two other players to keep an eye on are Bo Horvat and Kyle Palmieri.
On October 16, the Avalanche host the Boston Bruins. They finished second in the Atlantic Division with 109 points. I fully expect this game to be a tough one. Thankfully, this game is in Colorado, but Boston had a decent record whether it was home (24-11-6) or away (23-9-9). 47 wins, good for second in the division.
On October 18, the Avalanche host the Anaheim Ducks. Anaheim finished seventh in the Pacific division, recording only 59 points while finishing with a record of 27-50-5. Frank Vatrano led the team with 60 points, including 37 goals. Goaltender John Gibson finished the season with a .888 save percentage, while Lukas Dostal had a save percentage of .902. Both goaltenders had a losing record. It is clear that the Ducks have a ways to go, but the Avalanche can’t think much of that or they can be caught sleeping.
Two days later, they head to San Jose to take on the Sharks. The elephant in the room is that the Sharks had the first overall pick in the 2024 NHL Draft and took the player that everyone knew they would: Macklin Celebrini. This should be a tremendous game and Avalanche fans get to see the type of talent Celebrini is early on in his career. Hopefully Colorado has a great game. Like I just said, the Avalanche can’t get caught sleeping against a weak team. Center iceman Mikael Granlund led the Sharks in points with 60, but only had 12 goals. Meanwhile, left wing Fabian Zetterlund led the team in goals with 24.
The Hockey News suggests that Celebrini might not be able to pull of the kinds of numbers that some expect of him at the NHL level—at least right now. It would be great to have that come true right off the bat of his career. Let that sort of thing happen when the Avalanche are not facing him and the Sharks. However, if he does shine against Colorado, the players around him would still need to be at their best against the Avalanche. It’s not a one-man sport.
October 22nd is the first game of three against the Seattle Kraken this season. The Kraken finished fourth in the Pacific Division last year with 98 points. Jared McCann finished last year with 29 goals and 33 assists. Seattle allowed 236 goals last year. Their current goalies are Joey Daccord and Philipp Grubauer. Avalanche fans will remember Grubauer for his time in Colorado. Seattle had a 34-35-13 record last year.
For their October 24th game, the Colorado Avalanche head to the city in which the Grizzlies play: Utah. This is the location that the Arizona Coyotes moved to. While they should have a name by the season’s start, they currently are known as the Utah Hockey Club. The team finished sixth in the Central Division, generating a record of 36-41-5 and accumulating 77 points. They had given up 18 more goals than they scored themselves, 274 to 256. That is not a recipe for success. Center Clayton Keller led the team with 76 points in 78 games. Four of the top five point-getters last year for the team were centers, which is interesting to me. As a team, the Coyotes had a goals-against average of 3.11.
The Ottawa Senators are up next on October 27 in Colorado. They finished 7th in the Atlantic division with 78 points and a record of 37-41-4. The Avalanche will have to watch out for Brady Tkachuk and Tim Stutzle, who both reached 70 points last season. Ottawa traded for Linus Ullmark this offseason, who was previously with the Boston Bruins. He was someone I had suggested the Avalanche trade for. It will be fun to see Ullmark and Alexandar Georgiev go against each other.
On October 28th, the Chicago Blackhawks head to Colorado. Former number one overall pick Connor Bedard will get another crack at the Avalanche. Colorado won the division series vs the Blackhawks 4-1 and barely lost to them 4-3 in one game. Another team that has a ways to go to be competent.
Lastly, the Avalanche host Nikita Kucherov and the Tampa Bay Lightning. This could be one of the highlights of the season as two players in last year’s MVP race square off in Nathan MacKinnon (the winner of the award) and Kucherov. Of course, we can’t forget about goaltender Andrew Vasilevskiy. I expect this to be a pretty hard-fought battle that could come down to the wire.