{"id":603233,"date":"2026-06-20T17:42:12","date_gmt":"2026-06-20T17:42:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/603233\/"},"modified":"2026-06-20T17:42:12","modified_gmt":"2026-06-20T17:42:12","slug":"for-avalanche-joe-sakic-valeri-nichushkin-should-be-next-to-go","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/603233\/","title":{"rendered":"For Avalanche, Joe Sakic, Valeri Nichushkin should be next to go"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Choo Choo Train, thank goodness, is no longer off the rails.<\/a><\/p>\n

But Valeri Nichushkin has been losing playoff steam for years now, and that engine needs to be the next one Avalanche general manager Joe Sakic pawns off to somebody else.<\/a><\/p>\n

Since April 2025, Big Val has appeared in 19 postseason games for the Burgundy and Blue. He\u2019s scored in only four of them and picked up a point in just six.<\/p>\n

Context: In the previous 19 Stanley Cup Playoff appearances, Val had scored in 12 of them, a run that dates back to the \u201922 Western Conference Final sweep of the Oilers.<\/p>\n

More context: The Avs since April 2023 are 8-4 in the playoffs when Nichushkin finds the back of the net. They\u2019re 12-14 when he doesn\u2019t. They\u2019re 9-5 when he registers at least a point. They\u2019re 11-13 when he doesn\u2019t. They\u2019re 17-12 when he suits up. They went 3-6 when he doesn\u2019t.<\/p>\n

Look, nobody\u2019s happier to see the Big Nuke get his life squared away than the puck heads on the Grading The Week crew. He\u2019s been available for two straight postseasons, now, something that we couldn\u2019t say about 2023 and 2024. That\u2019s progress, by any standard.<\/p>\n

But by the same token, the clock\u2019s ticking. And not in a good way. Val turns 32 next March; he\u2019s in line to eat up $6.125 million in cap space through the \u201929-30 season; and Cale Makar\u2019s not likely to give the Avs a major hometown discount on his extension, is he?<\/a><\/p>\n

Ross Colton trade setting up Nichushkin swap? \u2014 B<\/p>\n

More to the point, Big Val is presenting to the Avs some of the same issues that the Nuggets have with Jamal Murray right now: 1.) Both the Choo Choo Train and the Blue Arrow have looked older, and played older, than their actual ages (31 and 29, respectively) as of late, and 2.) Both have lost the playoff mojo, the postseason chutzpah, that proved the \u201cX\u201d factor that lifted their franchises to titles earlier this decade.<\/p>\n

Val has overcome several personal and professional demons, and again, that\u2019s not to be discounted. Yet the returns during the window that counts, the hunt for Lord Stanley, have been visibly diminishing.<\/p>\n

A 6-foot-4 winger with a body to bang and speed to burn, Nichushkin was invisible against the Golden Knights, who more or less shoved the Avs out of the postseason as the West\u2019s top seed. He scored two goals in 12 playoff games in 2026. He\u2019s averaged 0.42 points in 19 postseason appearances since the spring of \u201925. He\u2019d averaged 0.86 points per playoff tilt in the 30 Cup appearances prior to that \u2014 a production drop of 51%. With the Avalanche\u2019s title window closing, Sakic can\u2019t afford for Val to be half the man he used to be.<\/p>\n

Jonathon Cooper\u2019s mini-camp absence\u00a0 \u2014 D<\/p>\n

Cooper\u2019s not the fave topic right now at Dove Valley, but it\u2019s a topic, nonetheless. The courts will have their say soon. Although the admittedly unqualified legal eagles on the GTW crew aren\u2019t too sure this was the best week for the Broncos\u2019 in-limbo edge rusher. (While unquestionably better than, say, last week at this time, for obvious reasons.)<\/p>\n

On the litigation front, a judge notably dropped charges against Cooper\u2019s female companion during the time of their joint arrest on June 4. A single charge of criminal mischief was removed from her record this past Tuesday.<\/p>\n

Cooper, meanwhile, was facing five active charges as of Friday afternoon, including felony second-degree assault by strangulation.<\/p>\n

On the football side of things, the Broncos formally excused Cooper from mandatory training camp \u2014 but \u201cexcused\u201d could be interpreted any number of ways, given the heat of the moment. The innocent remain so until proven guilty. But NFL precedent is not the same as the law, and it\u2019s highly likely that the league will levy a multi-game suspension against Cooper, given the charges \u2014 whether he\u2019s a member of the Broncos this fall or not.<\/p>\n

Either way, Sean Payton and his staff have to plan for life without Cooper for a medium-term or a long-term window in 2026. If this past week was any indication, that process has already started.<\/p>\n

Want more sports news? Sign up for the Sports Omelette to get all our analysis on Denver\u2019s teams.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Choo Choo Train, thank goodness, is no longer off the rails. But Valeri Nichushkin has been losing…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":603234,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5116],"tags":[193,1650,20131,61851,1116,192,144,5277,1064,20142,4347,13286,5,3976,4444,66954,1180,1262,20137,1812,4,557,1351,1653,20139,43,350,14,1228,3922],"class_list":["post-603233","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-colorado-avalanche","tag-avalanche","tag-avalanche-takes","tag-broncos","tag-broncos-takes","tag-cale-makar","tag-colorado","tag-colorado-avalanche","tag-coloradoavalanche","tag-courts","tag-denver-broncos","tag-football","tag-grading-the-week","tag-hockey","tag-jamal-murray","tag-joe-sakic","tag-jonathon-cooper","tag-latest-headlines","tag-more-avalanche-news","tag-more-broncos-news","tag-nfl","tag-nhl","tag-nuggets","tag-ross-colton","tag-sean-keeler","tag-sean-payton","tag-sports","tag-sports-columnists","tag-stanley-cup","tag-suspension","tag-valeri-nichushkin"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116783673716546355","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/603233","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=603233"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/603233\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/603234"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=603233"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=603233"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=603233"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}