The Avalanche aren’t perfect. There’s a lot that needs to be corrected and figured out ahead of the trade deadline and the playoffs.
But 31 other teams would kill to be in Colorado’s position. The Avs entered the break having held the No. 1 seed in the NHL every day for well over three months for the first time in franchise history. At 37-9-9, Colorado’s 83 points are five more than second-place Tampa Bay. Jared Bednar’s club also has a five-point cushion on the Minnesota Wild in the Central division with three games in hand.
Here are three reasons why this team has been different — why the first two-thirds of the season are going better than they did from 2022-23 to 2024-25.
The Return of Gabe Landeskog
The most obvious of the three, team captain Gabe Landeskog’s return to the lineup after three years of rehabing from a knee injury, has made a world of difference.
Landeskog was injured in the Avs’ 41st game of the season. In the 40 games he completed, Colorado is 31-2-7. This includes a stretch of 26-1-3 leading up to his injury. The Avs had two 10-game winning streaks in that time.
Without him, the team went 6-7-2 and limped into the break without the same sizeable gap between them and the rest of the league.
It’s not all Landeskog’s absence that affected them down the stretch, but it began what was a tough month of hockey.
Landeskog has meant everything to this team. His ability to be the voice of reason on and off the ice has sparked the team’s superstars into playing some of the best hockey of their careers early in the season. And his departure from the lineup brought back some of the same issues the team had in each of the last three seasons without him.
Most importantly, Landeskog was also producing. He didn’t start the season all that great offensively, but he had seven goals, 11 assists, and 18 points in 24 games before the injury in Florida on Jan. 5.
Landeskog is back now and will captain Team Sweden at the Olympics. Their opening game is on Wednesday.
But after the tournament, if all goes well, he’ll be reinserted into the Avs lineup and will continue to be the key piece he’s been since he dropped the gloves in training camp to set the tone for the season.
No. 2 Center Solved
Alex Newhook, J.T. Compher, Ryan Johansen, and Casey Mittelstadt.
These were the four centermen Colorado tried in the No. 2 center slot after the departure of Nazem Kadri in August 2022. All of them had slight flashes, but none could fill the shoes Kadri had left.
Enter Brock Nelson.
The Avs took a leap last March, trading top highly-touted prospect Calum Ritchie and a 2026 first-round draft pick to the New York Islanders for Nelson. The 34-year-old centerman was solid in his 19 regular-season games and seven playoff games with the Avs last year, but it still wasn’t quite up to the standard the team had for him.
This year has been different. Nelson has been unbelievable. He’s on his way to breaking his career high in goals and potentially even points, while playing excellent two-way hockey and serving as a stable faceoff option for the Avs.
Through 55 games, Nelson has 29 goals, 20 assists, and 49 points. That alone puts him at a pace of 43 goals and 30 assists in a full season. If he reaches those numbers, it would be a career high in goals and just shy of his best year in points for the veteran forward and U.S. Olympian (he had 75 points in 2022-23).
But it gets better. Nelson, like Landeskog, didn’t have a great offensive start. He was playing strong defensively, but he had just three goals and two assists in the first 16 games. Since then, Nelson has amassed 26 goals, 18 assists, and a whopping 44 points in his last 39 games. It wasn’t just a small sample size; it was nearly half a season of consistent play.
In that stretch, Nelson’s 26 goals are tied with Nathan MacKinnon for the third-most in the league. The Avalnache duo trails only Connor McDavid (27) and Jason Robertson (29).
If that’s extrapolated over the remaining 27 games, we can see Nelson reach 47 goals, 32 assists, and a career-high of 79 points.
Nelson is also playing a career-high 19:14 per game.
Goaltending Duo
In 2021-22, the Avs started and ended the season with a goalie duo of Darcy Kuemper and Pavel Francouz. Each and every night, the team trotted out one of its netminders with confidence. Even in the playoffs and the run towards a Stanley Cup championship, Kuemper won 10 games, and Francouz won six. Kuemper was the starter, but Francouz complemented him well.
And all of that sounds very familiar to the duo the team now boasts. Colorado acquired Mackenzie Blackwood and Scott Wedgewood less than two weeks apart during the 2024-25 season. Blackwood is the starter, and Wedgewood is the perfect complement.
This year is the first that the duo has spent together from opening night. And they’ve been excellent.
Blackwood is 16-5-1 with a .916 save percentage and three shutouts. He surrendered just seven goals in his last five starts heading into the break. Wedgewood is 20-4-5 with a .912 save percentage and two shutouts, albeit he wasn’t as strong heading into the break.
When Blackwood missed training camp and the first month of the season, Wedgewood stepped up. When Blackwood got healthy and went on a run, and Wedgewood was still playing well, head coach Jared Bednar alternated his goalies. Now, Wedgewood has hit a slight rut, and Blackwood has taken the reins.
You need one of your guys going at any particular time, and this duo has given the team that depth. It’s the first time they’ve had it for a full season since the Stanley Cup year.
