Colorado Avalanche: the 2025/2026 review
Colorado put together the best season in franchise history, piling up 121 points for a club record and landing a fourth Presidents’ Trophy. MacKinnon led the entire league with 127 points, while Landeskog’s return, after missing since March 2022, gave the campaign an extra edge. But it all came to a grinding halt in the conference final: swept in four games by Vegas, they never turned a record year into a shot at the Stanley Cup Final.
Key data
2025-2026 record: 55-16-11 (302 goals for, 203 against)
2025-2026 NHL standing: 1st in the Central Division
2025-2026 top scorer: Nathan MacKinnon (53)
2025-2026 top playmaker: Nathan MacKinnon (74)
2025-2026 points leader: Nathan MacKinnon (127)
Average age of roster (2026-2027): 30.5 years
Available cap space (2026-2027): $0.40M
Recent moves (off-season)
Arrivals:
- Fyodor Svechkov (F)
- Zachary L’Heureux (F)
- Noah Juulsen (F)
- Jaden Schwartz (F)
Departures:
- Ross Colton (F)
- Jack Drury (F)
- Valeri Nichushkin (F)
- Joel Kiviranta (F)
Two first-round picks gone, and no regrets
Colorado Avalanche, future contracts and draft picks
Colorado handled its biggest summer business with the Cale Makar extension, eight years at $20.4M a season, the richest deal in league history and a clear sign that the core built around MacKinnon and Makar is locked in for almost a decade.
That signing followed a bold move last winter: sending Mikko Rantanen to Dallas for Martin Necas, a gamble that has paid off handsomely, with Necas signing his own eight-year extension after a first full season of 100 points alongside MacKinnon.
The attacking core is therefore young, talented and built to last, while Devon Toews keeps providing elite stability at the back. The bill comes in the draft, where Colorado does not own a first-round pick in 2027 or 2028 after a series of aggressive moves to squeeze every last drop out of this window. After that painful conference final exit, despite the best regular season in team history, the organisation has plainly decided to go all in rather than back off.
121 points in the regular season, four games in the conference final
Colorado keeps stacking regular-season records, only for it to mean very little once the play-offs begin. Nathan MacKinnon delivered one of the finest seasons of his career with 127 points, strengthening his case as the league’s best player in the eyes of many, while Martin Necas erupted beside him with his first 100-point season and fully justified the Rantanen trade.
Cale Makar, now the highest-paid defender in NHL history, remains an offensive weapon who can tilt a game like a forward, while Devon Toews is still the defensive anchor that gives him the freedom to roam. Gabriel Landeskog’s return after more than four years out added real emotion too, a player who still carries plenty of the spirit from the 2022 title run.
Even with all that talent, the team was completely overwhelmed in the conference final, swept aside by Vegas in a series that raised awkward questions about Colorado’s depth beyond the star names. The real issue hanging over this club goes beyond individual skill, which has been more than enough for years: can Colorado finally build a collective backbone strong enough to survive a full series, rather than blaze through 82 games and fall apart when it matters most?
Player to watch: Cale Makar (D)
Makar starts the season as the highest-paid player in NHL history, and he says he welcomes the pressure that comes with that rather than hiding from it. “I’m the kind of guy who puts a lot of pressure on myself to perform year after year,” he said. “It’s going to push me even more.”
But beyond the numbers, one detail from that last series deserves a closer look: Makar missed the first two games of the conference final with an upper-body injury, then came back limited for the final two, a major factor Joe Sakic himself pointed to after the loss to Vegas.
So his health could end up mattering as much as his talent in the big moments. With the extension not kicking in until 2027-28, Makar is basically playing one last season at the old rate before he has to prove, year after year, that he is worth the biggest contract in league history.
Goal for 2026-2027
Projected Colorado Avalanche lines 2026-2027
For Colorado, failure is now judged against an absurdly high bar: a first-round exit would be a disaster, and even a defeat in the conference semifinals would sting after last year’s record-setting run. Anything less than a return to the conference final would be viewed as the bare minimum for a club that still sees itself as a Cup contender.
Joe Sakic has confirmed that Jared Bednar will stay behind the bench despite the heavy loss to Vegas, convinced the system works over 82 games. The real summer job was adding depth to the second and third lines, a weakness the coaching staff identified straight away, in an effort to lighten the load MacKinnon has carried almost alone in the biggest moments.
Finally winning the Cup would prove this contention window, now stretched to 2034-35 thanks to Makar’s extension, is delivering exactly what it should. Another early exit would force a harder question: has the star core, brilliant as it is, hit its ceiling without more help around it?
My prediction
A clear first-place finish for Colorado. They are coming off a spectacular season and, even with two strong challengers at their side, top spot is still the target here. A play-off place is a certainty. Now they just have to do it when the games matter.
Photo credit: wallpapersafari.com | briana33
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