Denver Post sports writer Corey Masisak opens up the Avs Mailbag periodically throughout the season and offseason. Pose an Avalanche- or NHL-related question for the Avs Mailbag.
How do you build another contender roster for next year?
— @milousnowy123 on Bluesky
The Avs are already a contender for next season. It may not feel like it, because they just got bounced in the first round by what is now clearly the franchise’s archenemy. There are a couple of key holes to fill, but a lot of the work to build a strong team for 2025-26 has already been done.
Goaltending performance is hard to predict, but the Avs will certainly feel better about that position with a full season of Mackenzie Blackwood and Scott Wedgewood. A full season of Gabe Landeskog, even if he takes games off periodically to manage his knee, is a big plus — especially considering how well he played against the Stars.
Even if the Avs didn’t sign or add anyone this offseason, the opening-night lineup could be something like this:
Lehkonen-MacKinnon-Necas Landeskog-Coyle-Nichushkin Colton-Drury-O’Connor Wood-Kelly-Ivan
Toews-Makar Girard-Manson Middleton-Malinski
That’s good enough to be a playoff team with solid or better goaltending. Now, obviously, the Avs are going to add to that. How much so might depend on being able to move someone under contract, but the point here is that the Avs are still starting from a strong baseline. They shouldn’t need to do as much surgery ahead of or during next season.
Which Avs are leading contenders to be replaced?
— Ed H., Auburn, N.Y.
Colorado has six unrestricted free agents. Brock Nelson is the headliner, and there is going to be plenty of focus on what the Avs do (or don’t do) at the No. 2 center spot on the depth chart. If Nelson comes back, there’s not going to be a lot of cap room to do much else.
Jonathan Drouin has signed two team-friendly deals. It might be hard to convince him to do another one. Ryan Lindgren will also likely be out of Colorado’s price range if he wants to be.
I’m sure the Avs would love to have Joel Kiviranta back, but he’s also earned a raise, and it might be hard to keep collecting bottom-six forwards on contracts with real term and money involved.
There are several players under contract who could, in theory, be traded to help create more cap flexibility. But moving any of them also creates another hole. As an example, trading Samuel Girard or Josh Manson could free up $5 million or $4.5 million in cap space, but the Avs would also still need to find a top-four defenseman … and the going rate for those is more than $4.5 million to $5 million with the cap ceiling shooting up the next three seasons.
Ross Colton is a good player and could essentially replace Drouin on the third line from the end of the Dallas series, but he also makes $4 million. The Avs could move him and then re-sign Drouin, or sign Kiviranta for less and use that savings elsewhere. Colton has a full no-trade clause, so he’d have to be OK with that.
Miles Wood might be the most obvious guy, but with four more years left on his contract and his injury history, the Avs might find it hard to trade him. A buyout would save almost $1.8 million in cap space this year and about $1.3 million over the following three seasons, but would also leave a little more than $700,000 on the books for four more years after that through 2033.
How do the Avs get better with no picks and no prospects?
— @bloomtownrat on Bluesky
Every team says it wants to get better in the offseason. I’m not sure the Avs need to “get better.” The roster they had in the Dallas series was good enough to win the Stanley Cup. It didn’t, but several rosters are Cup-worthy every year. And only one wins it.
The Avs probably can’t get better, at least on paper. A full season of Blackwood playing like he did after the trade, or even taking a step forward into Vezina Trophy consideration, could help Colorado win more games next year without being “better.”
The tougher question right now: How do the Avs get back to the same level as they were in Games 3-7? And the original question is the problem: They are running short on assets. Mikhail Gulyayev and Ilya Nabokov are prospects with potential, but they could also fill a full-time role in 2026-27 and help the club get a little younger.
It’s hard to imagine a scenario where the Avs would trade their 2027 or even 2028 first-round pick this offseason, unless it’s for a player with some term left on a good contract. Teams can only trade for rentals like Nelson and Lindgren so many times.
I would like to see Brock Nelson brought back, but if the parties can’t come to an agreement, who do you see as realistic potential external targets for a 2C?
— James W., Lakewood
We’re going to dive into this in much greater detail in the near future. The free-agent market at center … isn’t great. Sam Bennett is going to be the belle of the ball, and almost certainly out of Colorado’s price range. Nelson might be, too, for that matter. We’ll see.
John Tavares is a year older than Nelson, and the longer Toronto plays, the more likely he is to stay home. The next tier of options could be Mikael Granlund and Yanni Gourde — who don’t feel like true No. 2 centers on a Cup contender.
Trying to find a long-term fit at 2C on the trade market isn’t easy. Just ask the Avs. They’ve been trying. The most prudent course of action may be to let Charlie Coyle start next season there and then try to trade for one between October and March. But, referring back to the previous question about assets, it might be a tough deal to make.
If the Avs were to get a full season of good health from Landeskog, Valeri Nichushkin and Artturi Lehkonen, they could get by without a high-end 2C. But every time this franchise doesn’t win the Cup, the revolving door at that spot since Nazem Kadri becomes an obvious talking point.
Was letting Mikko Rantanen go a mistake?
— @milousnowy123 on Bluesky
Yes, but also we will see.
Having Nathan MacKinnon, Cale Makar and Mikko Rantanen is part of what made Colorado different. No other team had three of the top 10-15 players in the world. If you believe teams should hold on to those types of players and figure it out around them, then it was a process-based mistake.
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The public perception of how the Avs did in this trade has already swung back and forth. Colorado got a solid, maybe even strong return, but also gave up the best player in the deal.
When Martin Necas was settling in and Rantanen wasn’t, the trade looked good. When the Avs used one of the draft picks to add Charlie Coyle and the roster looked like one of the Cup favorites after the trade deadline, the deal looked even better. When the Avs destroyed Dallas in Game 4 and Rantanen had been quiet in the series, the deal may have reached its peak.
Then the guy who has been a postseason killer for nearly all of his career, despite what some Avs fans felt about his 2024 playoffs, showed up. And now the trade looks really bad for the Avalanche.
There are still a few long-term questions to answer. What will the Avs be able to do with a little extra cap space this offseason? What will the next contracts for Necas and Jack Drury look like? And then this is further down the line, and by then it might be a moot point, but how will Rantanen age over the course of his contract?
It’s been a little surprising to see how the emotional argument from some Avs fans has remained anti-Rantanen. I thought more people would swing back to letting him go was a mistake after the Dallas series. Maybe they will, over time. Or the next moves the Avs make will further justify the deal.
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