The Colorado Avalanche are fully immersed in win-now mode. They’re a team that’s leveraged its trade capital to ensure it can land the pieces needed to contend for a Stanley Cup.
That situation has come to the detriment of its prospect pool. And it’s the main reason why the organization is devoid of any top-100 prospects.
A recent piece in The Athletic looked at the top 100 drafted prospects ahead of the 2026-27 season. Unsurprisingly, not a single one of them belonged to the Avalanche organization.
That shouldn’t shock or alarm fans in any way. It’s a byproduct of attempting to compete for a Cup for so long. Since the dark days of the early 2010s, the Avalanche haven’t really had a chance to pick high in the draft. Yes, the 2013 first-overall pick yielded Nathan MacKinnon. Other high draft picks netted Gabriel Landeskog, Mikko Rantanen, and Cale Makar.
But since the late 2010s and early 2020s, the Avalanche have been dead set on winning. One of the side effects of being a perennial playoff team is landing late first-rounders and mid-tier prospects.
Make no mistake. These aren’t bad players by any means. They’re just not MacKinnon and Makar. That said, the Avalanche have managed to find solid prospects. The issue is that these prospects have turned into trade chips used to land veterans like Brock Nelson and Nazem Kadri. For instance, Calum Ritchie turned into Nelson, while Max Curran became Kadri.
Now, would Ritchie and Curran have been cornerstone pieces for the Avs? Not likely. They would have been solid pieces for a rebuilding team, but not the sort of foundational pieces that MacKinnon and Makar have become.
All told, the lack of high-end prospects should continue to be a hallmark of the Avalanche organization. The club will have to maximize its draft picks, wherever they land. We saw that this offseason with the selection of Egor Shilov in the second round and Beckett Hamilton in the third round. Those players have the potential to become decent support pieces down the line. But it’s worth keeping in mind that if they turn into solid NHLers, they could become additional trade chips as the team looks to keep its window of contention open for at least another half-decade.
Will the Avalanche eventually head into a rebuild? Yes, that prospect will become apparent as MacKinnon and Makar get older. That’s why the organization will eventually need to focus on landing as many potential replacement players as possible. That’s something likely starting this season. It could very well become the organizational ethos moving forward. The last thing the club will want is to gradually descend into oblivion and enter a decade-long rebuild.
Those days appear to be in the past. So, it will be interesting to see what future-oriented moves the organization makes down the road.
Add us as a preferred source on Google