What do Avalanche need to do to win Stanley Cup again?
The Colorado Avalanche saw one of the best seasons in recent NHL memory come to a crushing end in the Stanley Cup Playoffs when they get swept out of the Western Conference Final by the Vegas Golden Knights.
After cruising to the Presidents’ Trophy and streamrolling through the first two rounds, the Avs ran out of gas and saw their 121-point season go for naught, a fourth straight year of disappointment after a 2022 Stanley Cup championship that made it seem like Colorado was poised to capture more.
Now, with Joe Sakic back in the GM chair, an offseason focus on making the roster has changed the look and feel of the supporting cast behind superstar franchise players Nathan MacKinnon and Cale Makar.
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 the changes the team can make this upcoming season in order to be better positioned for a deep run in the playoffs.
Carter Hutton: I think probably from a team standpoint, knowing how good you were and being stable and being in a good spot, but they’ve come up short now, right? This has been a factor for this team, and there’s gotta be a way to get it over the top. What are the weaknesses, and where do they need to add? Where do they get better, and what pushes them over the top to become a Stanley Cup champion here as a team?
Jesse Montano: It’s an interesting question because one of the answers I’m going to give here, you can see it reflected in the roster and in a couple of spots they have up for grabs this year at camp. One of the things we heard from players, Jared Bednar and Joe Sakic kind of doing the autopsy on their season was they ran a little bit too, I don’t want to say high-strung, but it was just really intense. Every day it was really intense; they had a goal they were working toward, and Jared Bednar said he thinks it got to a point where, like, ‘Hey, you guys need to relax. You need to breathe a little bit here.’ I think you’re seeing some of that in that the couple roster spots they’ve got up for grabs, maybe it’s just one, but they want some young guys giving competition to that. They want a little bit of fresh blood, younger guys coming into the room. They specifically targeted a few guys. They prioritized bringing back Brent Burns as a guy who keeps the room light. It’s an off-ice thing, but they need to smile a little bit more this year. It was all business last year, which is good, I mean you saw the results in the regular season. Clearly they were taking their job very seriously, but just a little more levity, relax a little bit more in the room. The second thing is I think they sold out a lot last year to win the Central Division. They put a lot of miles on their bodies. They played through a lot of injuries in the regular season trying to get that top spot in the Central, trying to avoid the situation they were in the year before where they had to play Dallas in round one… The playoffs are a marathon, and you have to be ready for that.
You can watch the full segment and the rest of the episode below…
