Is Avalanche’s current core good enough?

The Colorado Avalanche were the toast of the NHL for most of last season after a historically hot start to the regular season culminated in a Presidents’ Trophy win by eight points over the next-closest team.

Nathan MacKinnon finished third in the voting for the Hart Trophy as the league’s MVP, while Cale Makar came in second place for the Norris Trophy as the league’s top defenseman.

But in the playoffs, with MacKinnon and Makar battling through injuries in the Western Conference Final, a historic season came to an unceremonious, and even embarrassing, end with the Avs getting swept by the Vegas Golden Knights.

After Colorado’s top duo won the Cup in 2022 with help from now-departed co-star Mikko Rantanen, the Avs have failed to make it out of the West in any of the subsequent four postseasons.

On Wednesday’s episode of Daily Faceoff LIVE, host Tyler Yaremchuk and co-host and former NHL goaltender Carter Hutton were joined by Jesse Montano of Guerilla Sports to discuss whether or not the Avalanche currently have a core behind MacKinnon and Makar that is capable of winning the Stanley Cup.

Tyler Yaremchuk: It wasn’t a very busy summer for Joe Sakic, and as you look forward, this is a very, let’s call it stable roster. Even if we were to go a year from now in the 27-28 season, they already have 11 forwards, 6 defensemen and a goalie and presumably their starter MacKenzie Blackwood locked up. This is a core that’s going to be together for the foreseeable future. I don’t know if this makes sense, but like, is that a positive or a negative? Do you think this is a core that is like a perfectly built roster? This is a team who even with their ages for the next 2-3 years, they’re going to be able to go on consistent runs and kind of keep this momentum going?

Jesse Montano: It’s so funny Tyler because when we got to the end, it was a shocking end for the Avs this past season, you took a step back and usually at the end of seasons you start dissecting the roster. You go ‘Okay, well how different is it going to look next year?’ You kind of started going through it and you’re like oh, these guys are all coming back, more or less. Joe Sakic and Chris MacFarland up until a couple months ago, they really kind of prioritized that. They put this team together; they did not go chase rentals. They wanted guys coming in with term. Nic Roy, Nazem Kadri, they wanted guys that would be coming back next year… Pretty much all the big money is signed long term… Artturi Lehkonen is the one guy that’s going to need a new contract when this season ends, or before this season ends, I guess. They’ll get that done. They have about $13 million in space projected for the start of next year… I think ‘stable’ is the word that they were probably going for. They’d be happy to hear you describe their roster like that.

You can watch the full segment and the rest of the episode below…