The Colorado Avalanche have started off the 2025-26 season as Stanley Cup favorites, sitting atop many a news-site’s power rankings. Through the first month of the play, they’ve shown that those beliefs have not been unfounded, though, some of the storylines from the first 15 games of the season have raised some eyebrows. A power play that’s been struggling to find its footing and a winless overtime record haven’t yet managed to hamper the Avs as they claim the top spot for points in the league, but nothing lasts forever in the NHL.

1. Power Play Lines

The Avalanche parted ways with Ray Bennett in the offseason after a surprising first round exit in the playoffs. To replace him, Dave Hakstol was brought in to get the Avs power play to be more aggressive this season. However, with the man advantage the Avalanche have looked stiff and despite having one of the strongest lineups on the PP on paper, the scoring chances just didn’t seem to be landing. However, in the last two games Brock Nelson has been moved down to the second unit, with Valeri Nichushkin replacing him in the first unit and adding some more size and physicality. That change led to 4 power play goals against New Jersey and a point against the NHL’s third best penalty kill in Tampa Bay. Whether the personnel changes stick, the first power play line, which include free agent signing Brent Burns, who is playing on a new team that is itself learning a a new system, should find more success as Hakstol’s system sets in. In the meantime, old habits from the old system will continue to show their incompatibilities and hamper this team.

2. Energy

The Avalanche came into the season as the NHL’s second oldest lineup and have found themselves in need of that experience on ice more than a few times this season. However, it must be pointed out that one of the oldest teams, sitting in front of one of the most physically demanding coaches, is winless in overtime this season. After losing in overtime 3-2 to a San Jose squad that had only won 4 games so far in the season, the Avalanche came out flat footed against the Tampa Bay Lightning, going down 1-0 just minutes into the first period. Luckily, Gabe Landeskog, playing in his first regular season since 2022, started a fight that gave the team the shot of juice it seemed to need. After that they would go on to win 3-2 against the Lightning to cut their winning streak at 5 in a row. The veteran captain has already found himself demoted from the top 6, but he’s still making contributions to the team that aren’t often going to show up on the scoresheet. With all the new (and old) pieces in the mix, this Avalanche team needs to get focused in order to keep that energy pointed in the right direction.

3. Wedgewood’s Market

What a difference a year makes. It was at the end of November last year that the Avalanche swapped out both of their netminders in trades that sent Justus Annunen to the Predators for Scott Wedgewood and Alexander Georgiev to the Sharks for Mackenzie Blackwood. Wedgewood, a career backup, currently has the best record in the NHL for a starting goaltender at 8-1-2. However, Wedgewood is only signed through the end of this season, and the Avalanche were already starting to push against the cap before signing Martin Necas. It’s yet to be seen whether Wedgewood can sustain this kind of production, but the Avalanche are certainly grateful that their backup has been performing more like a 1B while their 1A in Mackenzie Blackwood returns from injury. With the return of Blackwood, Wedgewood’s playing time is definitely going down, but it may be more up to him than anyone else for how much time Blackwood cuts in as he gets conditioned. That could mean Wedgewood’s value to other teams starts to outweigh his value to the Avalanche. But, Trent Miner is the only Avalanche goalie prospect that seems to have even a snowball’s chance of sniffing the NHL at the moment, and he doesn’t have that many games under his belt. After the way Annunen performed for them last year after being asked to step up, the Avs have more than a little reason to be gun shy about letting Wedgewood go and crossing their fingers with Miner’s development.  Â