Ray Ferraro had one of the best views of this dream season unraveling for the Colorado Avalanche.
He was positioned between the two benches as part of ESPN’s broadcast team while the Vegas Golden Knights stunningly swept the Presidents’ Trophy out of the 2026 Stanley Cup Playoffs in the Western Conference Final. It’s been a few days, but the shock of the result is still fresh.
For more than six months, the Avs set the standard in the NHL this season. Then, it was washed away in a week.
“In each of the first three games, there was a point in the game — like a significant moment — and Colorado lost all of those moments,” Ferraro told The Denver Post. “Itap not like they lost 5-1. They were in every game, but in those big moments that were available to turn each game, they lost every one.”
So now the offseason beckons, and it has suddenly become arguably the most important one of the Nathan MacKinnon-Cale Makar era. Everything was building over the past two years, from the historic in-season overhaul two seasons ago to the high-profile additions ahead of the March trade deadline, towards a championship run this spring.
For two rounds, the Avs looked like a juggernaut. Now, there are questions everywhere.
Will this group be able to win a second championship together? What can they possibly do now, after this dream season didn’t produce a title?
“When you’re in the air Colorado is, to nudge forward itap a really high bar to climb over. Where they are, to improve some of the decisions are pretty minute,” Ferraro said. “You can change the system. You can change a coach. But if the top end of your roster gives you no goals, then you lose.
“To me it becomes simple, but the solutions probably aren’t simple. In my mind, it’s how would you improve a really good team? And it’s not easy.”
‘They’re not the chances you need’
As the series against the Golden Knights progressed, Colorado’s ability to create high-level chances diminished. The Avs had plenty in Game 1, but Vegas grabbed the lead and Carter Hart kept the league’s top offense at bay.
In Games 2 and 3, the Avs had more shot attempts, more shots on goals and, at least in their minds, enough quality scoring chances to win. By Game 4, the mounting injuries and frustration were too much to overcome.
After losing a series in 2025 where the Avs felt like they outplayed Dallas, is there a through line to be drawn?
“I don’t think they made the right adjustments,” said Bruce Boudreau, former coach and NHL Network analyst. “When you’re playing a team like Vegas or Carolina that clogs up the neutral zone and is very aggressive against you, you’ve got to change your tactics a little bit.
“They’re the best team in the league at coming up the ice with four guys. But when they don’t have the neutral zone ice to skate it in and make those plays, they need to figure something else out. … Itap not easy to check, because they have some great, skilled players, but the formula is easy to check, if that makes sense.”
Boudreau was at the helm of a dynamic, electric offensive team in Washington. Those Capitals teams, led by Alex Ovechkin and Nicklas Backstrom, were young and had not won a championship. They were inundated with questions about whether they could play the right way at the crucial time of year.
This Avalanche team has won. Jared Bednar’s plan worked, and this core executed it with near-flawless precision in 2022.
But each of the past four seasons has produced an ending more agonizing than the last. The questions that are usually reserved for teams and players who haven’t done it are now resurfacing for this Avs group.
“It is a good question. I don’t know if it is a major change,” said Cory Schneider, an analyst for NHL Network and MSG Network. “Maybe just a small philosophical change of not getting stubborn. It does seem like they can get frustrated, like you can frustrate them, you can frustrate some of their top guys if you don’t give them what they want. If the other team is saying we’ll give you A, but we won’t give you B, then if we can get some good goaltending, we can frustrate you.
“I don’t think itap a major overhaul, but how can they find another way? It probably starts at the top with the top guys. It might be more of a mentality change than a big personnel change.”
Colorado’s top six scorers during the regular season did not score a goal against Vegas. The top guys didn’t score enough. The depth guys didn’t score enough.
“That reminds me of 2010,” Boudreau said of his Presidents’ Trophy-winning club in Washington. “We had 121 points, but then all of a sudden you run into some adversity and the power play doesn’t go, and I can see some similarities so quickly. Itap the frustration of … this never happened to us before, so what do we do?”
Vegas found a way to stifle the Avs, just as Dallas has done the two previous years. It was excellent defense. It was great goaltending, at times.
What are some potential solutions for when this problem arises again could be the key to unlocking another title, regardless of any personnel changes that might happen.
“What can be different? Until they get in between the circles for their chances, they’re not the chances that you need,” Ferraro said. “How do you generate more Grade A chances? I think they had probably as many as Vegas. They didn’t finish as well, and they did not, in my mind, between the circles as much as Vegas did.”
‘Itap going to be an interesting summer’
The first big domino is Bednar’s status.
The Avs pushed their end-of-season media availability to early next week. A year ago, it came three days after losing to Dallas in Game 7. The power play’s failure in that series cost assistant coach Ray Bennett his job.
Bednar is the winningest coach in franchise history. He’s the second-longest tenured coach in the NHL, behind Tampa Bay’s Jon Cooper. The Lightning have not won a single playoff round since Bednar’s Colorado team defeated them in the 2022 Cup Final, but there has been far less chatter about Cooper’s job security.
“I happen to think Bednar is really good,” Ferraro said. “He’s a really, really good coach that coaches a team that just had 121 points. If they’re letting him go, they better have a really good idea of who’s coming next.”
The other big domino is general manager Chris MacFarland. Multiple outlets have reported that Nashville wants to speak with MacFarland, who is nominated for GM of the Year. If he were to leave, that opens the door to an entirely new set of questions for this offseason.
If MacFarland stays, the biggest long-term item on the to-do list is Makar’s next contract. But, in the short term, what can or will the Avs do that will affect the 2026-27 edition of the team?
There are 17 players who appeared in at least three of the club’s 13 playoff games under contract for next season. Jack Drury is a restricted free agent. Defensemen Brett Kulak, Brent Burns, Nick Blankenburg and Jack Ahcan are all unrestricted free agents, along with forward Joel Kiviranta.
Colorado has a shade below $3 million in cap space, . That’s not enough to revamp the back half of the defense corps, not to mention a new deal for Drury and room for a 13th forward.
“I’m reading different opinions on “blow it up” and I don’t think people quite understand A) the impossibility of that and B) would you look at a team that had 121 points, or would you look at seven days?” Ferraro said. “I can almost guarantee they’re not going to have eight new players next year. Thatap not happening.”
At least one, if not two, of those 17 players under contract will need to be moved to create the cap flexibility to fill out the roster. The Avs were in a similar spot last summer. They traded Charlie Coyle and Miles Wood to Columbus.
That allowed them to sign Brent Burns, and it gave them enough breathing room below the cap ceiling to add Kulak, Nicolas Roy and Nazem Kadri before the trade deadline.
To do more than that will be its own challenge. The Avs are short on draft picks and prospects to use in trades, but there are also lots of teams with plenty of cap space who might want to add one of the Colorado veterans.
“I think it must be the most torturous and difficult task to sit there and go, ‘I think we should be patient. I don’t think we should make major moves,’ ” Ferraro said. “It must be really disappointing and really frustrating, because you’re close, and then you’re losing four games, so are you close? That’s what they’re wrestling with.”
When the season ends the way it did, it feels like everything and anything could be on the table. There were similar feelings a year ago, with a stunning Game 7 loss to Dallas still fresh in everyone’s minds.
MacFarland, along with team president Joe Sakic, preached patience then, and belief in this group. They were rewarded with the best regular season in franchise history, and an 8-1 romp through the first half of the playoffs.
But then the Western Conference Final happened. How the Avs respond will affect not only their chances of winning the Stanley Cup in 2027 but also years beyond that.
It’s an aging group. It’s also a group that just ran the league for six months. The forthcoming decisions are not going to be easy.
“Itap going to be an interesting summer, because they’ve shown they will be aggressive,” Schneider said. “They’re similar to Vegas in that sense, where they’re not afraid to make a change. There’s no sacred cows there. If anybody was willing to pull off a pretty bold move, I wouldn’t be surprised if it was them.”
