It\u2019s February 18th, and Martin Necas is still sweating profusely from a game that saw his Czechian side eliminated, but has enough breath to mention his national pride: \u201cI am proud of what we have done, especially in this last game.\u201d<\/p>\n
The last game he is referring to was Czechia\u2019s OT defeat at the hands of his Canadian and NHL teammates Nathan MacKinnon, Cale Makar, and Devon Toews.<\/p>\n
On the eve of Czechia and Canada, Martin Necas stole headlines yet again by jokingly commenting, \u201cYeah, we let them (Team Canada) win the first one because we knew we wouldn\u2019t beat Canada twice in a row.\u201d<\/p>\n
The discourse following the games largely revolved around Team USA and Team Canada\u2019s epic finale and rightfully so, but Martin Necas dominance of the entire tournament in the face of the world\u2019s best competition wasn\u2019t exactly a widely acknowledged truth.<\/p>\n
Fast forward to March of 2026, and the Avalanche are making one last push for league and divisional supremacy, and who stands as the key contributor to Colorado\u2019s persistence? Well, it is Martin Necas, of course, who hasn\u2019t skipped a beat since displaying his talents in Italy.<\/p>\n
It may not be the first thing people are talking about when they think of the Colorado Avalanche, with Hart hopeful Nathan MacKinnon and Norris mainstay Cale Makar dominating headlines throughout the season. But make no mistake, this has been Martin Necas\u2019 year, and he\u2019s earning every cent of this 92 million dollar contract.<\/p>\n
The Olympics were something Martin Necas \u201chad always dreamt of,\u201d and he played like it, as a top 5 player in the tournament with 8 points (3G, 5A) in just five contests at 1.60 points per game\u2014tied for one of the highest outputs by a Czech skater in an NHL-era Olympics. He powered his nation to a quarterfinal matchup with Team Canada, including a goal and assist in the 3-2 qualification win over Denmark that advanced them.<\/p>\n
Necas and Czechia may have been a dark horse pick by Managing Editor Jackie Kay heading into the Olympics, but I don\u2019t think anyone else really gave them an outside chance of standing up to the powers that be in international hockey.<\/p>\n
Necas and his countrymen did that and then some, as it appeared they might actually upset Team Canada, when they held a 3-2 lead late in the third before Nick Suzuki tied it at three a side.<\/p>\n
The overtime frame featured a breakaway chance for Marty himself, but a generous non-call on a pretty blatant hook from Devon Toews effectively slowed Necas enough for the pressure to affect his shot on net.<\/p>\n
It would be Golden Knight Mitch Marner who would put that quarterfinal contest to bed with an OT winner.<\/p>\n
I don\u2019t know if it\u2019s been talked about in the Avalanche locker room, but Necas surely could give Toews some grief for the fortune of not being penalized on that play.<\/p>\n
Sure, no medal for Marty, but he was among the best players in the entire tournament, no matter what crest they wore.<\/p>\n
The question then became. How long could the Marty party continue?<\/p>\n
I don\u2019t know how much the Olympic transition, its logistics, and its consequences truly resonate with most hockey fans. The mentality of this hockey arrangement likely hit European players the hardest, as they didn\u2019t return to their homeland like their North American counterparts after the action subsided.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is weird because you don\u2019t really go home, back to Czechia. You go back to your teams. It is different from when you play a world championship,\u201d Necas said before getting his bags ready for travel back to North America for the rest of the NHL season.<\/p>\n
The human element of all the travel and painstaking details can rattle even a lowly reporter from Colorado, much less a professional hockey player balancing life and the rigorous demands of competing at the highest level. Not Martin Necas, though\u2014the professionalism, dedication, and pride we saw in Italy have continued here in Colorado with the Avalanche, where he\u2019s exploded for double-digit goals in the month-plus since returning.<\/p>\n
So how long could the Marty party continue?
Answer, all the way into March. Since the Olympic break, Necas has been on fire, collecting eight multi-point performances in his last 14 games while piling up 10 goals and 24 points overall in that stretch. He\u2019s scored in eight of 10 contests, notched multiple points in five of his first six games back, and racked up four goals and four assists in his most recent six outings. Standout efforts include a three-point night (1G-2A, including two power-play assists) in a 4-1 win over Chicago on March 20 and two assists in a 3-2 OT victory over Washington on March 22.<\/p>\n
Necas is at career highs across the board: 32 goals (surpassing his previous best), 84 points (topping his 82 in Carolina), an 18.9% shooting percentage on 169 shots, eight power-play goals, 11 power-play assists, and elite underlying numbers like 21:25 average TOI and a dominant +44 rating. His top-line chemistry with MacKinnon is evident\u2014he\u2019s producing at over a point-per-game clip and pacing toward his first 90- or even 100-point season.<\/p>\n
In the build-up to the 2026 Olympic Games, Martin Necas made it clear that he knew \u201cit\u2019s better to be on their side than against, obviously\u2026\u201d when asked about his teammates representing Team Canada, but I imagine they would echo the same compliment in his direction.<\/p>\n
When Martin Necas put pen to paper at the team facility back in October of 2025, the detractors immediately compared the dollar figure to what another top-line winger in the Central had garnered after much fuss. Some questioned if he\u2019d ever live up to the commitment the Avalanche made that day.<\/p>\n
Fans should be pleased to note that the first thing that came out of Martin Necas following the deal was the following in an article with NHL.com:<\/p>\n
Super excited. Happy to get this done. Excited for the times ahead. Now I can focus on winning hockey games and do whatever it takes to bring a (Stanley) Cup back to Colorado<\/p>\n
Getting a 90-point, 40-goal scorer out of a deal that was heavily scrutinized should be the talk of the town as far as I\u2019m concerned, but validation of the Mikko trade and Martin Necas key contributions to this Avalanche team have fallen on deaf ears.<\/p>\n
I don\u2019t suppose that will remain the case as Colorado begins its playoff campaign. With Necas carrying Olympic momentum into a career-year explosion, the Marty party will be front-page news if Colorado once again reaches the mountaintop in 2025-26.<\/p>\n
Let us know what you think of Martin Necas\u2019 year so far in the comments!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It\u2019s February 18th, and Martin Necas is still sweating profusely from a game that saw his Czechian side…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":518878,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5116],"tags":[193,192,144,6002,5277,5,4],"class_list":{"0":"post-518877","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-colorado-avalanche","8":"tag-avalanche","9":"tag-colorado","10":"tag-colorado-avalanche","11":"tag-colorado-avalanche-feature-stories","12":"tag-coloradoavalanche","13":"tag-hockey","14":"tag-nhl"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116279870287787713","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/518877","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=518877"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/518877\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/518878"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=518877"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=518877"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=518877"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}