Denver Post sports writer Corey Masisak opens up the Avs Mailbag periodically throughout the offseason. Pose an Avalanche- or NHL-related question for the Avs Mailbag.
Do you see the Avs improving next season with (Gabe) Landeskog and (Martin) Necas playing for them the full season?
— AccomplishedHair3582 on Reddit
I think there are two different questions in play for the 2025-26 Avalanche season. One, can the Avs be better next year during the regular season, even with just the players they have right now? Two, can they be as good, on paper, as they were in the Dallas series? The second one is trickier, and the answer might not be known until the trade deadline.
The Avs have been a very good team each of the past two seasons, but the gauntlet to get out of the division has been rough (see Dallas in the conference finals). Having an “easy” first-round series really helps. Winning the division does matter (see Colorado in 2022).
How can the Avs be better during the regular season next year? Here are some ways, ranked in order of probability:
1. A full year of Mackenzie Blackwood and Scott Wedgewood. This one is pretty easy/obvious — 80-ish starts from those two instead of 54 could be worth another 5-6 points, at a minimum.
2. Better health luck in general. The Avs used 50 guys this season. That’s nearing historic territory for a Stanley Cup contender. Colorado may not get 80 games from Val Nichushkin or Artturi Lehkonen, but something like 70-75 each could add more wins/points.
3. A (slightly) improved power play. The Avs had the No. 1 power play from the day after they traded Mikko Rantanen until the end of the regular season, but still finished eighth overall at 24.8%. They have the talent to finish higher, and a new voice in charge could make that possible. A few extra PPGs could be worth an extra win or two.
4. A full-ish season of Landeskog. No one is going to expect him to play 75-80 games (no one expected him to be as good as he was against Dallas, either). He’s likely going to run into some minor things, and the Avs may just rest him in some back-to-backs as well. But even 55-60 games of Landeskog, given what he showed during the playoffs, would be valuable.
Having Necas for a full year doesn’t feel like an upgrade, but if he can continue to produce close to what Rantanen did, that’s definitely a plus.
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Do you foresee the rising cap as an opportunity for teams like the Avs to use a buyout option to open up cap space, knowing that the penalty down the line will be a smaller percentage against the cap than in years previous?
— Gabe, Fort Collins
I could definitely see that being a trend. The first year of MacKinnon’s current contract (2023-24), the cap ceiling was $83.5 million. By year five of his deal, the cap ceiling is expected to be $113.5 million. That’s more than a 25% increase. A $2 million cap hit from a buyout is going to be a lot less punitive in 2028 than it has been in recent years.
If a GM with some cap issues in 2025 can save enough money to add an extra player now, those penalties at the end of the decade might be a lot easier to justify.
With not a ton of room in the cap and some prospects and picks traded away from this last Cup push, how do the Avs retool to be able to be a Cup contender again with strong Central Division rivals? What pieces would you mortgage now? Or do you run it back until the wheels come off?
— TopShamrock, via Reddit
How the Avs navigate this coming season is going to be fascinating. I think we can basically lump the offseason and the lead-up to the trade deadline together. Would it be ideal if they figure everything out before opening night? Sure. But the Avs couldn’t afford Brock Nelson, Ryan Lindgren, et al. under the salary cap in October.
They don’t have many premium assets left to trade. Trading young goalies is hard, and the market can be weird for them. Plus, Ilya Nabokov could slide in as the replacement for Wedgewood after next season.
Mikhail Gulyayev is the most intriguing prospect they have. But he’s also small-ish and Russian, both of which could affect his trade value. Do the Avs keep him and plan for him to slot in as a replacement for Samuel Girard? Or is he the key piece in a deal for a No. 2 center/No. 4-5 defenseman at some point in the near future?
I think any other prospect they currently have should be available in a win-now trade, but none of them are likely to get a big deal done on their own.
The one young player they have with significant trade value is Necas. Trading him would obviously create another significant hole, and at some point, trading the best player in a deal for two or three parts could eventually hurt the club’s ceiling. Moving Rantanen may already have, but there is time for the Avs to “fix” that.
If Mitch Marner ends up an Avalanche this summer at $12.5 million-$13 million per year, do you think this would reflect positively or negatively on (Chris MacFarland) and (Joe) Sakic, with their inability to extend Rantanen?
— WastedTalent34, via Reddit
Marner isn’t going to end up here. The Avs would need to move multiple players under contract to make that happen, and it’s hard to see them deciding that Marner is worth twice as much as Necas next season.
Now, if it did happen? It would be a … strange look, given what Avs management has said about Rantanen/team building since the trade. Are there ways to talk around it? Sure. There could be some (more) subtle blame put on Rantanen’s agent. They could just say they have new/different information than they had in January — the projected cap figures weren’t known then, the team’s first-round exit informed the decision, etc.
Free agent Mikey Eyssimont — any chance the Avalanche could sign this relentless forechecker?
— Bill M., via email
Eyssimont has an interesting backstory, and not just because he’s a local guy and former Colorado Thunderbirds player. I was covering the Sharks when they got him on waivers from the Jets and he immediately became a regular for them. San Jose flipped him to Tampa Bay, and 20 games of a waiver claim for what became a fourth-round pick (from the Jets, no less) was a nice bit of business.
As Bill mentioned, there’s an obvious appeal to Eyssimont’s game. He’s pretty similar to Miles Wood, both good and bad. An agent of chaos, but also takes a few too many penalties at times. He could be a nice pickup, but I’m guessing the Avs wouldn’t be able to go much past $1 million for him. He made $800K the past two seasons, but could be a nice fit next to Jack Drury and Parker Kelly.
Who are we leaning into to make the next permanent jump from the AHL to the NHL?
— DoctaMan, via Reddit
The simple answer is Ivan Ivan. He played 40 games for the Avs this season, but also hit the rookie wall. He can be a defensively responsible fourth-line guy, but whether or not he provides enough energy and offense to become a trusted guy for Jared Bednar like Kelly, Drury or Logan O’Connor have remains to be seen.
Nikita Prishchepov is intriguing. He might have a little more upside. He looked like he belonged at times with the Avs last season. But he’s going to need to prove he can do more and do it more consistently to become a regular for them and not just an injury fill-in.
Oskar Olausson and Jean-Luc Foudy have the potential to be more, but they both had so-so years at best and would need a big training camp to get back into this type of discussion.
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