Colorado Avalanche 2025-26 NHL Season Preview | The Steve Dangle Podcast

Colorado Avalanche 2025-26 NHL Season Preview | The Steve Dangle Podcast

Nathan McKinnon thought they had it all to win last year and honestly hard to disagree with him, but they are now less Miko Ranton and more on some other people. Uh, and some and some notable additions this off seasonason. It’s the Colorado Avalanche who had 102 points last year, good enough for only third in the division, which kind of speaks to the have and have not nature of the Central Division in the West. Uh the overunder on them with the um uh with Bet MGM right now is 105.5 and it’s even odds over or under. Do you have 105.5? Say it. Chum FM. That’s 104.5. [Applause] Dumb ass. I thought it was 104. 105.5. 105 for Colorado. You have them over or do you have them under, gentlemen? That’s a lot of points. I think they’re an extremely good team. I have them very high in that division. That is a lot of points under. Jesse, under under. Okay. I’m curious to hear where you guys have them finishing in the division. Now, this year, they added a few guys. Uh uh specifically, um you know, Marty Nichas, and who remains unsigned and has apparently rejected some contract offers, so I kind of want to get into that. You do have the addition of a guy who just couldn’t play the last few years, Gabriel Landisk. And we’ll see what he can do this year, if he’s able to do a full year. Brock Nelson acquired at last year’s trade deadline. Uh ressigned for $7.5 million. Very, very good player, but again on the aging side of the 30s. He’s 33. Um let’s talk about the Colorado Avalanche starting up front, which is their, you know, it’s hard to say uh it’s not their strongest suit with Nathan McKinnon up there. Uh they seem to have enough, right? There’s enough firepower here. There’s uh they’re they’re going to add from within. Like they’re gonna get a full year out of Valerie Nushkin. Hopefully you’re gonna get a full year out of Gabriel Lanniskog. Hopefully. Hopefully. Uh and those are two things you didn’t have last year, right? Uh you’re going to have you’re not going to have the upheaval of the Rantin trade. You’re just going to have Nichas the whole time unless he’s dealt which is a little confusing. Jack Drury in the I mean they’re going to score a shitload of goals. They they have I know you you said upfront, but like Kale Mar was probably their second or third leading scoreer. Yeah, he was the highest scoring defenseman in the league. He’s he’s an absolute monster. So, I kind of count him amongst that. They are probably the best team in the league for I’m channel flicking. I’m just looking around and oh, there’s an AS game on. You’re you’re never going to be disappointed whether they win or lose. They’re so fun to watch all the time. And you positively and negatively, no game of theirs is ever over. Jesse, when you look up the ABS up front, you know, yes, they have Nelson, Nichas, Drury, some of these guys, and and Landis Cog back, but without ranting in there, what a monster he was against them specifically in the playoffs last year, even though this is a regular season preview. Are they better? Yeah, it’s hard so hard to look at the lineup and think that they care at all about the regular season. Like it’s such a it’s such an experienced group and you say like this whole team is getting through 82 games just to compete in game one of the playoffs. So I look at how they’re a little weaker on wing. They’ve kind of always been that way. You know, Rancin and McKinnon hold up the thing and Lannox wasn’t there the whole time and they’ve been trying to piece meal that stuff together. So, I’m I’m unsure of like how good they’re going to be in the regular season. They’re obviously a playoff team. They’re going to be one of the top ones, but I don’t have them at the very top of the division. I think having Landisk back now is a game changer. I wonder how his workload’s going to go for 82 games and that like if it’s a thing they’re managing as they go along or if it’s just like go full speed the whole time. So, I’m interested to see that. So, I think like Liskog for me is over the course of the season the biggest thing that’s different there in that forward group. Here’s here’s why I think I maybe should have put them first in the division and I’m and I might be wrong about the under. Uh I don’t know if you wanted to skip here, but that this to me is the biggest regular season factor for the Colorado Avalanche last year in 18 games for them. Alexander Gorgv was an 874. Is that good? No, but it is better than Eustacein who filled in for 11 games and was an 872. Oh, both of those men had winning records. That’s That is crazy. That’s crazy. There’s How do How do you win one game? How do you win two? How do you win? So, Gorg was 8-7. Ananin was 6-4. Scott Wedgewood, who’s now their full-time backup, essentially did not lose. He was 134-1 with a 917. Mackenzie Blackwood 2212 and3 with a 913. They’re going to come out of the gate with that instead of having to literally completely change both their goalies. Yeah. Um before Christmas. And think of how many points. They’re the only team who’s ever done that. I know. So, think of how many points you don’t drop. Even though those guys had winning records, they dropped points. Yeah. Think of how many points you don’t drop just by virtue of actually having people who can stop hockey pucks. It’s crazy. Yeah. Crazy to think of. Okay. Uh, now let’s talk about defense. Like actually, and now this kind of dovetales perfectly cuz this Marty Niches stuff that’s hanging around as of this recording. Uh, they’re going to have to sign him and it’s going to be an expensive contract. The other guy they’re going to have to sign and it’s going to be an expensive contract in a year or at least next summer is Kale Mar. He is going to be eligible next summer. He’s got two years left as of this point at 9 million bucks. But obviously you don’t want Kale hitting the opening open market, do you? No. Uh so um the defense looks strong. Uh looks like it always kind of did. Uh what do you think about those moves just before we get to the full defense? Um do you sign do you do you make sure you sign Nichas and then sign Kale Mar later? Do you hold hold back on Nichas and then sign Kale Mar because he’s going to be the bigger ticket and then try to get Nichas done? What where do you go with this? Oh, you’re you’re not thinking about it the right way. If if Nichas wants a certain number, you trade him. Um they’re bold enough that we know they’ll do that. Um you need to be able to afford Kale Mar. Beginning, middle, end. Okay. Um and if this player, yes, it’s the one that you, you know, traded Ranton in for, but if this player stands in the way of that, goodbye, Jesse, you’ve got Mar Tae, Gerard Manson, uh Brent Burns is now there, which is going to be cool for the vibes. uh and Sam Molinsky uh you know Katon Middleton will see some time. There’s other players that are coming up. Uh what do we think of that defense core? I don’t mind it. Like obviously Kale Mar is the big piece there. Like the defense is always going to be good because Kale Mar is a part of it and you got Taves on the other side. I wonder how the Olympic year is going to affect uh the squad. I wonder if both of them are going and both of them are going to be big parts of that team Canada team and they’ll be the top pair. Yeah. Like I assume that’s how they’re going to play it out cuz cuz it’s Canada and they got so many options too. But I assume they’ll be the biggest factor. So I wonder how that affects this team and having so many guys in their lineup like McKinnon, Macar, and Taves being such big factors on team Canada and having to have that in the middle of the season. You’re going to ramp up for that and then you got to ramp up again for the playoffs. I don’t know, just a little factor I was I was thinking about with this team. Nas is probably going to the Olympics. My assumption is Landiskog ends up at the Olympics. Uh it’s they’re going to be a stack team. They’re they’re going to play a lot of hockey. There’s not really another team you look at in the league whose top two defenseman are going together, playing on the same team, who’s going to be an X factor during those two weeks that the games are happening. Between preseason, regular season, and the Olympics, there are going to be guys pushing a hundred games by the time this by the time the playoffs show up. But if anybody can handle it, it’s Kale Mar and Mr. Broccoli, Nathan McKinnon. Uh uh McKenzie Blackwood, Scott Wedgwood are the goalies. And and as we mentioned, they remade their roster. I mean, San Jose was like, “Hey, this goalie is too good. We must get rid of him.” And Colorado’s like, “Thank you very much. We appreciate that.” That’s literally what happened. Yeah. Um, it worked out pretty good for them. Uh, good good regular season, especially after all of that crap for the first couple of months. It just, you know, the four GV and all that stuff. Uh, what do you think for these guys this season is a reasonable expectation? Are they a mid-range goalending pair? Are they on the higher end? like, you know, because none neither of these guys I would expect are like elite level goalenders, but you still think I’m like, well, it’s not a bad pairing though. They’re on either the high end of average or the low end of good. And that might be they might even No, they’re good. They’re good. They’re not elite. They’re good, Jess. Yeah, because if you look at what Steve was saying earlier in the transition to goalending, Colorado from the beginning of the season until February 1st had a 585 points percentage and then from February 1st till the end of the season they’re up at 690. That sure feels like a lot more like them. That’s that’s a team that transitioned its team as a whole over the course of the season, right? The trade deadline, they made so many moves and then early on with their goalending, they fixed things as things went along. They fixed things and they got better. So this season they’re playing with that squad the entire time, right? You know, you got to expect that this thing with Blackwood now there it’s going to be a little a lot smoother and they’ll be riding along that 690 for the course of the season. Yeah. I mean the stress it puts like your offense is capable of crazy things, but the stress it puts on your offense to be like, “All right, it’s the third period. We scored four goals in the first two.” Mhm. Oh, okay. Five minutes later, we’re losing. Mhm. So, okay, we’re gonna go nut. Like, almost every Avalanche game I saw, no matter how many game, no matter how many goals they scored, featured a sixon-5 situation. Almost every one I saw, I would love to know. They might have spent more time at six on five than any other team in the league. Uh, it it the stress it puts on your offense, even though they’re capable of it, that wears on you. Yeah. So, that brings me to this. Where do you have Colorado finishing in the central this year? Uh, it would not surprise me at all if they won, but I I have them second. Okay, Jesse Blake, I have them third. Same place as last year. I I have them first. And the reason I have them first is I don’t think this has happened yet. If they don’t, I don’t think it has either. If they don’t have that terrible start with their goalending, they would have won the division. Uh, and this division is a real have and have not division. Like I do think that they would have kept pace with the Jets. I don’t think so. Winnipeg won the president trophy 116 points. They were 14 points off of the pace. I don’t I don’t think seven wins. I don’t think the maybe I don’t know. Winnipeg got goending the whole time. They didn’t Yeah. So So that’s where I have them. So Jesse, you have them second. Third. Interesting. Steve second. Yeah. Very dangerous picks here. So that is your Colorado Avalanche season preview.

Steve Dangle, Adam Wylde, and Jesse Blake preview the upcoming season for the Colorado Avalanche and predict where they will finish in the Central Division.

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