There is something different but familiar about this 2025-26 Colorado Avalanche team from the past few seasons. This team isn’t plagued with injuries to start, and there are just a couple of new faces. The makeup of this team and the excitement around it resemble that of the 2022 Stanley Cup team.
“Since 2022, we had a lot of players leaving in the offseason. Some years, like last year, starting the year with significant injuries to a bunch of guys in our top six and key players — and looking at some of the rosters that we started the season with last year compared to what we have going into this year,” head coach Jared Bednar said. “We’re relatively healthy. We do have a handful of injuries that we’ll have for some guys in camp, but probably the deepest team we’ve had since 2022 to start the season.”
Nearly 50 different players suited up for the Avalanche last season, but they still made the playoffs. The start and entirety of the 2023-24 season was next-man-up mentality due to injuries, but they made it to the second round of the playoffs. The post-Stanley Cup season had a turnover of players and injuries to boot, but guess what — they still ended up in the postseason.
Read More: Necas, Avalanche Still Negotiating Contract Extension: ‘We’ll See What’s Going to Happen’
“The big change is, the big difference is that we’re sitting here now with a deep lineup, and you look at our top six, and you look at our bottom six, and you look at our D-core and our goalies — I see us having a very strong lineup from top to bottom, right off the bat, and that’s something you can build off of,” Gabriel Landeskog said. “You start there, and you build the chemistry, you build the special teams right off the bat, you know where guys are going to be. You can tweak things as you go, but for the most part, you can start and set the foundation, and then just build off of that and get better as the season goes on. Last year was a lot of new faces coming in at the end of the year, I come back in for game one of the playoffs. It’s just a lot of things moving around. So I like where we’re at this time of year. Excited to get started.”
General Manager Chris MacFarland and President of Hockey Operations Joe Sakic said at the end of last season they thought they had the team to go deep and possibly win the Cup — so did their players. But they are not harping on the past.
“It still hurts for sure. We have most of our team back, but I thought we were good enough to win last year. You’re not going to win every single year, even with the same team. But lots of things need to fall into place …,” Nathan MacKinnon said. “I don’t know how much negativity can really drive you for the next nine months. I think we’re trying to be positive and look at it from just a new chapter, new challenges throughout this season. There’s going to be a lot of ups and downs.”
Colorado had a quiet offseason, only adding veteran defenseman Brent Burns and forward Victor Olofsson, but lost forwards Miles Wood, Charlie Coyle, Jonathan Drouin and defensemen Ryan Lindgren and Erik Johnson. After the significant turnover last season, team stability to start this season is welcome and inspiring.
“There was so many changes last year here, so many guys got traded and traded out. So it’s always pretty hard when you come from somewhere to a new team and you have like five to 10 guys like that. It’s definitely a little different for the team,” Martin Necas said. “And I feel like coming here already, before the camp feels like guys are tight, and having a good group, you’re having fun. That’s very important for the team, too. Obviously, last year, playoffs didn’t go as we hoped for, but that’s in the past. Focus is on the first game of the season, and I’m excited for that.”
“We can get down to the nitty-gritty a lot quicker. We don’t have to bring as many guys along with our system and structure and all of that. So obviously, there are some new faces, but most of the guys here have had at least a half-season. Even the guys that we brought in at trade deadline, they’ve got it figured out, and they’re going to be ready to go for camp,” Devon Toews said. “It’ll just make our games much more important to get us kind of going, and then starting the season, I think we’ll be ready to go and have a very good plan of what it’s going to look like from the start, which we haven’t had in three, four years here.”
There is always excitement to start a new season, but this feels different. It’s the first time in three seasons the Avs will have their captain from the get-go. There is only one extensive injury and a couple of short-term ones. The hunger and passion exude from the players and coach alike — and you can sense it in their presence.
Read More: Avalanche Open Camp With Injuries to O’Connor, Blackwood, and Girard
“We want to be the best that we can be, and I think it’s exciting this year. We’ve had some really good teams in the past couple years, and we just haven’t been able to get it done. This year there’s even more excitement around the team …,” Cale Makar said. “It’s nice to have a full team, and I think the mindset of everybody’s so locked in and dialed right now, I’m excited to just get it going. The success of it all, it’ll come, and that’s the exciting part, is when you start building these bonds on the team. It’ll be fun, and I think we’ll get there.”
