The Colorado Avalanche are the popular favorites to win the Stanley Cup for good reason.
This year's Presidents' Trophy-winning team doesn't quite look the same as it did in 2022 when the Avs won the Cup – but that's because this team looks better.
After sprinting through the 2022 NHL post-season in just 20 games, Colorado has a chance to make this a brief playoff run once again.
The Avalanche are the only Presidents' Trophy winners since the 2010-11 Vancouver Canucks to lead the NHL in goals-for and goals against. They're one of three teams to secure first place in the standings by more than seven points in the last 10 years. While the other two – the 2022-23 Boston Bruins and 2018-19 Tampa Bay Lightning – both lost in the first round, Colorado looks ready to break the Presidents' Trophy curse.
The last team to win the regular season and the Cup was the Chicago Blackhawks in 2013, but this year's Avs have won both before in separate years and are hungry to sweep the season.
The year before Colorado's third Stanley Cup in franchise history, the Avs won the Presidents' Trophy with a 39-13-4 record in the COVID-shortened 2021 season. They went on to lose in the second round to the Vegas Golden Knights in six games, falling to the curse.
Avalanche GM Chris MacFarland has made critical moves since then to hold this contending team to its standard.
Business As Usual: Parker Kelly Thrives In Expanded Playoff Role A calm, steady promotion to the second line didn’t change Parker Kelly’s approach—he simply handled it the same way he always does: business as usual.
In the last three trade deadlines, MacFarland has shopped around for a second-line center to find a replacement for Nazem Kadri, who helped the Avs win in 2022. Finally, in the final hours of this year's trade deadline, they brought Kadri back.
Kadri's played the second-line position well with seven goals and 15 points during the 2022 run, but this time around, his role is reduced because of Brock Nelson's stability. He's still producing in middle-six role, with nine points in 16 regular-season games.
Nelson was brought in at last year's deadline to fill that second-line center spot, so the Avs now have one of the deepest center cores in the league with Nathan MacKinnon, Nelson, Kadri and Ross Colton.
Along with replacing both goalies and acquiring Martin Necas and Jack Drury for Mikko Rantanen last season, the Avalanche look deeper on paper than they did in 2022.
Since Jan. 1, Parker Kelly has been the sixth-highest scorer on the team with 22 points in 43 games, setting a career-high 21 goals and 35 points.
Defenseman Sam Malinski signed a four-year contract extension worth $4.75 million annually in January, and he set career highs with eight goals, 32 assists, 40 points and a plus-43 rating.
Kelly and Malinski were not in Denver for the Cup in 2022, although nine players remain on the team from that squad.
And if there was any cause for concern on the goaltending situation, that should be put to rest. The tandem of Mackenzie Blackwood and Scott Wedgewood earned the William M. Jennings Award.
A 50-50 goalie tandem can be difficult to run, but coach Jared Bednar knows his team well. If they can play the way the team played all year with even a little bit of security, then they are destined for a lengthy post-season.
Wedgewood got the Game 1 start, but if he begins to struggle, you can regroup with another top-10 goaltender in goals-against average.
This year's Avalanche are more defensive than the 2022 squad anyway, with the best penalty kill in the league despite having a power play that ranked out of the top 10 for the first time since 2020.
The power play fell to the bottom six in the league this year, which can drain the momentum. But after Kadri came back to help, he scored three of his four goals on the power play, and the team ranked 15th in power-play percentage since the trade deadline.