The Avs are trying to get back on the dynasty track. It’s no guarantee, but the names at the top of the lineup are sure to give them a shot.
The Avs spent the 2022-23 season getting an unwanted crash course in the challenges often faced by a defending champion.were, rightfully, in demand on the free-agent market and out of the Avs’ price range. The luck necessary to win the Stanley Cup took a major 180 when’s offseason knee surgery turned into a career-altering ordeal. Holes in important depth spots were never suitably filled, and the end result was a team ripe for the picking at the hands of a plucky first-round opponent.
For now, the team starts with the seventh-best Stanley Cup chances, third in the West, and second in the Central. That can change during the season if some of their depth projects hit better than expected, or they make some adjustments at the deadline. MacKinnon is an absolute force with the puck, a bull-in-a-china-shop player if the bull were also as fast as a gazelle. On the rush or off the forecheck, it doesn’t matter — MacKinnon will do whatever he wants offensively .
Together with Makar, the duo makes up the league’s best pair earning 66 percent of the goals and 58 percent of the expected goals over the last two seasons. Among regular pairs, those numbers rank behind onlyLast, but certainly not least, is Rantanen who quietly had a 55-goal, 105-point season for the Avalanche last season — his first time eclipsing either the 50-goal or 100-point mark.
It’s a completely retooled bottom half, one that has potential to work if all the pieces fit to maximize everyone’s strengths. That’s a possibility where the group is better than the sum of its parts, and Colorado does deserve the benefit of the doubt. But chemistry isn’t easy to obtain overnight and there may still be growing pains across the board trying to find the right fits.
Johansen is only a year removed from a 63-point season in 2021-22, but that looked more like a late-career blip rather than what’s to come. The Avalanche can hope his descent has more to do with a lack of support around him, or a system that wasn’t conducive to offense — but data tracked by Corey Sznajder shows a player who didn’t drive play very well.