How much change can one team survive? The Avalanche are finding out
On November 30, Colorado Avalanche GM Chris MacFarland facilitated one of the first player-for-player trades of the 2024-25 NHL season by acquiring goaltender Scott Wedgewood from the Nashville Predators.
The Avs, hemorrhaging goals and stopping pucks at a league-worst rate (.856 SV% through 11/30), swapped struggling youngster Justus Annunen for Wedgewood, a veteran hand who had landed with a thud in Nashville.
Since then, Wedgewood has been a reliable (if sparingly used) component of a solid goaltending tandem with former Devils teammate Mackenzie Blackwood, who arrived a week later.
Remarkably, he’s also become the 15th most-tenured Avalanche player on the 23-man roster. In the three-and-a-half months since Wedgewood touched down in Denver, MacFarland has added another eight full-time NHLers.
First came Blackwood, the missing piece in goal who quickly helped turn Colorado’s season around. Next were Martin Necas and Jack Drury, who were part of the earth-shattering trade that sent Mikko Rantanen and his expiring contract to Carolina, if only briefly.
After a month or so of radio silence, the Avs splurged on five new roster members just ahead of the trade deadline (if Erik Johnson, a veteran of 700+ games with Colorado, counts as new), with veteran sniper Brock Nelson headlining the additions.
Charlie Coyle is the lone newcomer from the early March shopping spree who’s signed through next season. Jimmy Vesey’s 31 playoff appearances are the low-water mark for the group. In other words, they’re textbook win-now acquisitions.
Consider that the team that “wins the deadline” rarely wins the Cup, that a playoff date with their old friend Ranatanen and the almighty Dallas Stars looms large, that these deals cost two second-round picks, a first, and No. 1 prospect Calum Ritchie and you have to ask: was it worth it?
Nathan MacKinnon, the reigning MVP and current Art Ross frontrunner, seems to think so. “We have to [go all-in] … there’s no other way,” MacKinnon told reporters after learning of the Nelson trade. “We’re not in rebuild mode.”
The no-nonsense response was typical of MacKinnon. Colorado’s other, more affable superstar, Cale Makar, was more outwardly grateful. “It’s awesome from our perspective to see how much faith in us management has and how much they want to win right now,” Makar said.
MacKinnon and Makar are two of the top players on the planet. As long as they’re in their prime, the Avalanche can beat anyone. A Stanley Cup victory in 2022 proved that beyond hypotheticals. Why should MacFarland hamstring the duo’s chances of repeating the trick by hedging against them?
The cynical answer would be that this season was doomed from the start.
Power forward Valeri Nichushkin has missed 38 games through injury and suspension. For playmaker Jonathan Drouin, the magic number is 33, thanks to a series of upper-body injuries that began on opening night. Gutsy defenseman Josh Manson is up to 20 injury absences and counting.
Artturi Lehkonen and Ross Colton are also in the double digits. Ironically, Makar and MacKinnon, who have had their share of durability issues, are the only Avs with perfect attendance.
Coach Jared Bednar has employed a preposterous 41 different skaters and six starting goaltenders this season. For comparison, those numbers are 28 and two, respectively, for the league-leading Winnipeg Jets. Even the last-placed San Jose Sharks, who sold everything that wasn’t tied down in the trade market, have used a comparatively paltry 36 skaters and four netminders.
Between a bottom six that featured plenty of future trivia answers, a goaltending battery that played itself out of town by Christmas, and a textbook-sized injury report, Colorado could have been forgiven for calling the 2024-25 season a wash months ago.
Instead, they’re approaching the 70-game mark just two points adrift of the Stars (albeit with two fewer games remaining) as the teams joust for home ice ahead of their seemingly inevitable playoff rematch. It’s not a two-man show in Colorado either, despite MacKinnon’s scoring lead and Makar’s second 25-goal season from the point.
Between the pipes, Blackwood has put himself on Team Canada’s 2026 Olympic radar with results (18-7-3, .919 SV% for COL) that finally match his elite post-to-post athleticism. On the top line, Necas’s wheels and hands have fit right in (7 G, 18 P in 19 GP) next to MacKinnon.
Perhaps most importantly, Nichushkin is healthy and focused. The towering Russian has six goals in nine games since his Feb. 26 return, a stretch that has coincided with an 8-0-1 heater for the team. Colorado hasn’t lost in regulation with ‘Nuke’ in the lineup in its last 14 tries.
If the performances of those three players helped convince the Avalanche brass that the team around MacKinnon and Makar was worth doubling down on, the constant state of flux throughout the roster hammered the point home.
Elite teams are often afraid to upset the delicate balance they’ve achieved through five months and 60 games by throwing a shiny new toy into the mix. More often, guys like Blake Coleman and Scott Laughton are coveted as low-key, down-lineup producers who won’t rock the boat.
Why should the Avalanche, whose team chemistry has been rocked by gale-force winds all season, have such qualms about a little choppy water? And what team would be better suited to parachute Nelson or even captain Gabriel Landeskog, who’s nearing his return from a nearly three-year injury hiatus, into its top six than one that’s already tried everyone from Logan O’Connor to Ivan Ivan (not a typo) on its second line?
Colorado is uniquely equipped to roll the dice on drastic lineup changes because it has already gone through so many of them. Where the Florida Panthers (2-3 since the trade deadline), the Tampa Bay Lightning (2-2-1), and even the Stars (1-2-1) have struggled to integrate their new players, the Avalanche have chugged right along.
Their only loss since March 7 was in overtime during the second half of a back-to-back, a defeat they quickly rinsed off by beating Dallas in a momentous clash on Sunday night.
CALE MAKAR OVERTIME WINNER 🚨
HE'S JUST TOO GOOD 😱 pic.twitter.com/iOLVJRcQ2d
The Avs once adapted to new linemates, teammates, and lineup configurations because they had no choice. Now, they’re doing it because it’s their best chance at the fourth Stanley Cup in franchise history. If they pull this off, McFarland and Joe Sakic are going to have a heck of a time deciding which of their 47 players get championship rings.
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