Avalanche Paid Heavy Price to Keep Their Stanley Cup Window Open
The Bill Comes Due
Ordinarily, September is when organizations show off the future. The Colorado Avalanche's situation is different. They've deliberately exchanged pieces of tomorrow for a chance to win today. Once Nathan MacKinnon, Cale Makar, Mikko Rantanen, Gabriel Landeskog, and the like made Colorado a legitmate contender, draft capital became currency.
Take a look at the Brock Nelson deal in March of 2025. The Avalanche gave up Calum Ritchie, a conditional 2026 first-rounder, and other assets in the transaction. Ritchie wasn't just organizational depth, he was one of Colorado's better assets. Did one more shot at the Cup justify losing another significant piece of the future?
2022
It's easy to criticize an empty prospect pool. It's much harder when there's a Stanley Cup sitting in the trophy case. Colorado's aggressive roster construction helped produce exactly what every franchise is trying to produce: a championship. Prospects are possibilities. Stanley Cup banners are permanent.
Who's Left?
Adam Kimelman of NHL.com ranks defenseman Mikhail Gulyayev as the Avalanche's top prospect, followed by forward Egor Shilov, goaltender Ilya Nabokov, defenseman Sean Behrens, and forward Beckett Hamilton.
Of the five, Nabokov and Behrens are as close to NHL ripe as you can get. The Avalanche could possibly see Behrens on the big club this year, while Nabokov is probably a year away.
MacKinnon and Makar are still driving the NHL roster. The real danger comes when Colorado needs inexpensive young players to fill important roles around expensive stars.
According to PuckPedia, the Avalanche are projected to have only about $404,000 in cap space entering 2026-27. That's where a depleted pipeline could become painful. A contender with expensive stars needs cheap NHL contributors.
Colorado made only 11 selections in the 2021, 2022, and 2023 drafts combined. Looking ahead, the Avalanche don’t have a first-round draft pick until 2029. That's significant because it means fixing the prospect pool isn't necessarily going to happen quickly.
MacKinnon and Makar are supposed to be expensive. That's what superstars cost. The trick is finding the third-line forward, bottom-pair defenseman, or depth scorer making an entry-level salary. If you don't develop those players internally, you have to acquire them somewhere else, and potentially surrender even more assets to do it.
This is why this isn't a simple indictment. Colorado has spent its future. It also brought a championship.
The Avalanche will eventually have to pay for years of borrowing from tomorrow. The prospect rankings suggest that bill may already be arriving. Steven Ellis of dailyfaceoff.com has the Avalanche ranked 30th out of 32 teams.
But hanging above the ice at Ball Arena is the reason the Avalanche was willing to run up the tab in the first place.
Jason Fink is an NHL writer and lifelong hockey fan who fell in love with the game when he watched Wayne Gretzky’s Edmonton Oilers defeat the Philadelphia Flyers in the 1987 Stanley Cup Final. When he’s not writing, Jason enjoys spending time with his wife Michelle and their son Theo and daughter Stella. Whether he’s following the latest NHL news or cheering from the rink, his passion for the sport has been a constant throughout his life.