Does a sweep change the Avalanche’s approach to the offseason?
The Colorado Avalanche had their season come to an end in shocking fashion with a sweep in the Western Conference Final at the hands of the Vegas Golden Knights.
With rumors swirling that general manager Chris MacFarland may depart for an elevated role in another organization and head coach Jared Bednar’s future somewhat in question following the disappointing exit, team president Joe Sakic has plenty of big decisions ahead of him this offseason.
On Thursday’s episode of Daily Faceoff LIVE, host Tyler Yaremchuk and co-host and Daily Faceoff managing editor Matt Larkin were joined by NHL insider David Pagnotta of The Fourth Period to discuss the ripple effect that the conference final’s result could have on the offseason in Colorado.
Tyler Yaremchuk: Since we spoke with you last week, Colorado Avalanche, eliminated, swept by the Golden Knights. A sweep feels so much worse than if you would have lost a heartbreaker in six or seven games. So when we look ahead to the off season, does a sweep change how the Avs are gonna handle this summer?
David Pagnotta: Probably a little bit. I would imagine the noise about having a new voice behind the bench might escalate, especially in the immediate. There’s already speculation about Jared Bednar’s future in Denver and what happens there. There’s a lot of speculation around Chris MacFarland as well. Is he going to Nashville in an elevated role, and all of that. So off the ice, we may see more change happening there than on it. Because I think they’ve got some pretty significant injuries that they’ve had to deal with going into this round. Cale Makar, we know about the shoulder. There’s something else that’s been bothering him that’s worse. And that really hindered his ability to excel. We know obviously Nichushkin got banged up and the other guys hurt. Nate [MacKinnon] was dealing with that puck to the knee/leg. So those all factored in, certainly. Still a really good team, still a very deep team. Maybe an adjustment on the blue line to get another mobile guy on that back end. But I think they like the group itself. It’s just now it’s fine tuning some things to kind of get them to where everybody expected them to be. I’m not surprised Vegas won. I’m just surprised it was a sweep, like I think a lot of people are kind of in that same mold.
You can watch the full segment and the rest of the episode here…