Valeri Nichushkin leaves a decorated and complicated legacy in Colorado.

There were long stretches, including during the last championship run, where he was one of the best two-way wingers in the NHL. And there were two moments off the ice where his conduct sabotaged postseason chances. He left the team during the first round of the 2023 playoffs against the Seattle Kraken under troubling circumstances and was suspended hours before Game 4 of the Dallas Stars series the following spring.

Open arms lead to broken hearts, but the Avs welcomed Nichushkin back, knowing a third violation could result in a lifetime ban. And the record when Nichushkin played remained remarkable.

But give Joe Sakic, the old, new GM, credit for recognizing that Nichushkin was trending in the wrong direction.

He faded last season. No, he was not the reason the Golden Knights broomed the Avs in the Western Conference Finals — that list starts with Nathan MacKinnon, Jared Bednar, and Brock Nelson — but he was no longer a menace in front of the net or along the boards.

By trading Nichushkin to Columbus for three draft picks, Sakic acknowledged the obvious — something of a surprise given the confidence he showed in the team at the end-of-the-season presser.

The Avs could not just run it back. What happened in Vegas needed to stay in Vegas.

Sakic shipped out Ross Colton and Jack Drury to buddy Chris MacFarland in Nashville, and sent Nichushkin packing.

There is no guarantee it works, but the moves served two purposes. It creates nearly $11 million in salary cap space to add a piece — perhaps they pursue Mario Ferraro — or use the draft picks to execute a midseason blockbuster.

This is what good leadership looks like. While I still disagree with Sakic’s reasoning for keeping Bednar, he is not afraid to be bold. He let MacFarland operate in this fashion and has continued the tradition.

The Avs need to get younger, even as they cross their white-knuckled fingers that the playoff version of Nelson and Nazem Kadri is not a harbinger of things to come.

It can be argued that Nichushkin is a better player than the Nuggets’ Aaron Gordon. And while the local hoops franchise frets about Gordon’s future, Sakic ripped off the band-aid with Nichushkin.

Did he get enough in second, third and fifth-round picks? Probably not. But if it allows the Avs to add a young impact player in the coming weeks or months, then it works.

There is a reason Trader Joe is buying the groceries again. He knows what he is doing.

WNBA Clark Mess

The WNBA was gifted its Tiger Woods with the arrival of Caitlin Clark. And the league has spent the last three years trying to prove that it doesn’t need her. The pettiness and jealousy are stunning. The lack of leadership from commissioner Cathy Engelbert is embarrassing. We can all agree that Clark is not better than some of her predecessors. But none moved the needle like her. The TV ratings, increased salaries and better travel scream as much. Yet, the league continues to let opponents bully and foul her in ways that are unspeakably bad. Does Clark beg for calls? Yes. That does not mean refs should turn a blind eye to Phoenix Mercury forward Alyssa Thomas placing her fist on Clark’s throat in a pile-up. If the league wanted to send a message, Thomas would have been suspended for 10 games without pay, not one. The light discipline means that when it comes to Clark, it remains open season.

World Cup break

The hydration break has created an H2OhMy! effect on the World Cup. It helps that the United States won its pool. But it goes beyond that. There is actual scoring, the most since 1958. The more goals, the more exciting it becomes for fringe fans. It is unclear whether this World Cup will be a transformational moment for soccer in the United States, but the style of play makes that outcome seem more realistic.

Goaltenders | Defensemen | Wings

There are only two NHL teams besides the Colorado Avalanche who are in the conversation for best collection of centers and those clubs have combined for five Stanley Cup Final appearances in the past four seasons.

Center talent and depth was undeniably one of the reasons Colorado stormed through the regular season as the league’s top team and breezed by Los Angeles and Minnesota in the first two rounds of the playoffs. It’s also a valid reason for Avs fans to be frustrated.

Florida has two championships and a third Cup Final appearance with Aleksander Barkov, Sam Bennett and Anton Lundell. Edmonton has two trips to the Cup Final with Connor McDavid, Leon Draisaitl and Ryan Nugent-Hopkins.

But the Avs stalled out in the Western Conference Final this past season with Nathan MacKinnon, Brock Nelson, Nazem Kadri and Jack Drury at center, not to mention Nicolas Roy and others capable of moving to the middle when needed.

Those guys are obviously a big reason why the “Cup or bust” expectations will remain next season.

“The core guys are still here, so we’re going to shoot and try and win another Cup next year, and make it two,” Avalanche president and general manager Joe Sakic said. “But I will tell you, it’s a tough league. We’re not the only team that is trying to win the Stanley Cup. I mean, it’s a deep league. There’s a lot of great teams, and there’s only one team at the end of every year that’s happy.

“With our group, their goal is to try and win another Stanley Cup, and that’s what they’re going to shoot for, and that’s what we’re going to try and hopefully do.”

What just happened

MacKinnon led the NHL in goals for the first time and finished third in the Hart Trophy voting. His 127 points are third-most in franchise history, and he now owns the two best seasons since the club moved to Denver. When MacKinnon was injured blocking a shot with the Avs up 3-2 in Game 3 of the conference final, the season effectively ended in that moment.

Nelson had a great regular season — netting 33 goals, scoring 65 points, and finishing third in the Selke Trophy voting. When he and Valeri Nichushkin were paired together, it was the best 1-2 punch in the NHL at controlling possession and one of the league’s top penalty-killing duos as well. Nelson struggled throughout the postseason, most frustratingly when he failed to convert several great chances against Vegas.

Kadri arrived at the deadline to much fanfare. His production improved with Colorado despite moving down the lineup. He helped the power play surge in March and look competent in the first two rounds. He also sustained a broken finger in April, which kind of got lost among all the other injuries Colorado players were dealing with during the Vegas series.

Drury was OK as the club’s No. 3 center, but was excellent when moved back to his No. 4 role. He’s one of the very best 4Cs in the league and a strong penalty killer.

Roy arrived one day before Kadri, and spent most of his time on the wing. He was strong in a supporting role during the playoffs. Both Parker Kelly and Ross Colton spent some time at center, but coach Jared Bednar liked both more on the wing. Rookie Zakhar Bardakov also spent some of his limited ice time at center and looked like a player who might fit better in the long term as a wing.

“When I look at their team, I guess I lean towards not making a whole bunch of changes,” ESPN analyst Ray Ferraro told The Denver Post. “But I would wonder if there’s a way they can spruce up the middle of the ice with a little more speed? So maybe Kadri needs to go to the wing, and if you do that, can you find a centerman that can play there?

What¶¶Òõap next

The Avs’ center depth and talent looked formidable before the stunning results against Vegas.

Will Nelson bounce back after a tough postseason? He was a consistent playoff performer with the Islanders.

Kadri is a slightly different case because of his history in Denver, but Nelson was much better in his first full season after the trade. Could Kadri, given the unsettling aspects of a trade and the finger injury, find a bump in play next year?

To further Ferraro’s point, Kadri turns 36 years old on Oct. 6. Nelson turns 35 nine days later. MacKinnon will be 31 in September, though he obviously remains one of the fastest, most dynamic players in the sport. Roy turns 30 in February.

It is an interesting idea, trying to find a younger center with more pace to join the group. Kadri had mixed results on the wing when he spent some time there for the Avs.

Drury is a restricted free agent and is one of the keys to this offseason. With Colton off to Nashville, the Avs have nearly $7 million in cap space. They also need to sign at least two NHL defensemen.

While Colorado views Drury as a No. 4 center and would certainly like to keep him, there is probably a team or six out there that would like to have Drury as an option for its No. 3C role. If the two sides can’t find the middle ground on a contract, the Avs could hold their ground and see what an unpleasant arbitration process yields.

That would likely lead to a one- or two-year contract and more than likely a new team in the near future. If Drury won the arbitration case, that could cause salary-cap-related problems for the club. Or the Avs could explore a trade for Drury’s rights before it ever got to that.

If everyone is here on opening night, the Avs still have a very strong 1-4 up the middle with Roy and Kelly as solid options in reserve. High-profile college free agent addition TJ Hughes can also play center. He’s been an offense-first player, but his college coach believes he can help an NHL team in the near future in any role.

Future depth chart

*Unrestricted free agent in 2027; + Restricted free agent on July 1; # RFA in 2027

The Avs have failed four consecutive seasons to reach the finish line. But did you see the speed, the passing, the scoring before the final lap? Amazing, right?

Sports make hypocrites of all of us.

And the Avs’ long-awaited, season-ending press conference Thursday nestled their leadership firmly into this category.

For a franchise that adopted a Stanley Cup-or-bust mentality in October, vice chairman Josh Kroenke and president/general manager Joe Sakic sure seemed satisfied with a seven-month process that came up embarrassingly short in an early Las Vegas summer.

“Our style worked all year,” Sakic said. “It just didn’t work for one week.”

“The continuity is what has established this core group,” Kroenke added, “as elite.”

In the wake of another playoff disappointment, I naively thought management would shed their long-held beliefs and focus on sobering truths.

The truth is coach Jared Bednar’s system no longer works in the playoffs. Colorado can outscore anyone, anywhere in the regular season. However, force the Avs to face a possession-oriented, defensive-minded team that protects the middle of the ice in the postseason and watch them melt. Sakic, in one of his few moments of critique, allowed that the Golden Knights “frustrated” the Avs. More like took their soul and made the hockey world question their strategy and pride. But sure, let’s go with frustration (insert eye roll).

The truth is the Avs need a new voice. Keeping Bednar — and there was no discussion of moving on from him or any member of his staff — feels like staying in the marriage for the kids. Not sure if you heard, but the guys in the room have his back. “He has the total confidence of the players,” Kroenke said when I asked why the organization was sticking with Bednar. Chipped in Sakic, “He’s the best coach for the group. They love playing for him. They believe in him. And I am going with the players.” Letting the players make this decision is like allowing children to choose breakfast and wondering why they have a stomachache from ice cream and Flaming Hot Cheetos.

Not saying that Bednar is a Disneyland dad. But he is not a disciplinarian. Of course, the players adore him because his style is frenetic and fun. But how do they reward him when it matters most? After losing consecutive home games to the Golden Knights, the Avs took a 3-0 lead in Game 3 and collapsed. A suspect penalty on Josh Manson hurt, and Nathan MacKinnon blocking a puck with his knee really hurt, but those are excuses.

The shift after MacKinnon exited, the Golden Knights scored. Want to show you love your coach? Rise up in the biggest moments, not on a lazy Tuesday night in Columbus. Carolina’s Rod Brind’Amour is considered Bednar’s coaching twin. How did the Hurricanes respond to heart-in-a-blender losses in Games 1 and 3 to Las Vegas? With character-defining victories. The Avs countered by getting swept.

The truth is Sakic’s motivation for next season’s team is flawed. “They will be hungrier,” he insisted. Older? Definitely. Hungrier? Nope. Seriously, how much bigger an appetite for redemption can they muster? They entered last year with an unhealthy obsession to avenge their playoff elimination by Dallas. So, climbing one rung higher and losing to a different team will lead to raising the Cup? Sorry. Not buying it. Nobody can question the Avs’ drive. They want another championship, but are they willing to adapt in the postseason to get it?

The truth is the Avs are not winning another title without the schedule breaking their way. We all loathe the NHL’s postseason format that pits good teams in early rounds and dilutes the value of a top seed. Only one of the last 15 Stanley Cup winners also won the President’s Trophy, a statistical oddity that does not exist in the NFL, MLB or NBA. But nothing sounds more limp than a great team asking for help. If the Avs faced Utah and Anaheim in the first two rounds, do they beat Las Vegas? Maybe. But the Avs put together one of the best seasons of all time, so the idea that they must have the perfect path to reach their goal is unbecoming.

The truth is the Avs must confront uncomfortable questions with their roster. They looked tired in the playoffs because they are getting old. The reality is that it is more likely that Brock Nelson, Valeri Nichushkin and Nazem Kadri regress than have greater success. Same goes for Parker Kelly.  The Avs must look to trade one of their big contracts to slow the aging process and leave them fresher in the postseason.

The truth is that one championship is not enough for the core of Nathan MacKinnon, Cale Makar and Gabe Landekskog. Yet, where the masses saw disappointment, Sakic saw accomplishment. “We could panic and blow it up and start it over. But what this team did was pretty remarkable. The last two trade deadlines were meant not just for that year but to bring another Stanley Cup (eventually).”

The Avs have a handful of needs this offseason — Mackenzie Blackwood must establish himself as the No. 1 goalie after Scott Wedgewood showed his ceiling and Colorado requires a new power play plan.

The Avs’ biggest need is not a change in their roster, but a change in their belief system. They must be willing to get more physical and tougher.

Otherwise, Makar will be wincing through pain trying to explain the unfathomable, Blackwood will be dropping F-bombs in disbelief and MacKinnon will be ducking reporters despite being the team’s best player.

Sakic said that the Kroenkes have given him everything he needs. There might be, Sakic hinted, a trade. But it is hard to see a seismic event matching what has occurred over the last two seasons. The roster, for the most part, is set.

The truth is the Avs cannot change the ending until they change their thinking. Their loyalty is going to prevent them from posting the necessary eight more postseason victories.

The Avs are going to be good next season.

But the truth is, they are not going to win another Cup without changing how they view their team. And those are just the cold hard facts.

Count to 10. Deep breath. Exhale. Slowly. Put the pitchforks down and ask yourself this question:

Who could the Avalanche get to coach their team — right now — who would be better — again, right this very second — than Jared Bednar?

David Carle? Best coach in the time zone. I was in that camp a year ago, my friend.  The driver of DU’s hockey dynasty is allegedly not ready to walk through that door.

Jay Woodcroft? Can he draw up a defense? No thanks.

Craig Berube? Too much Maple Leaf. Pass.

Kris Knoblauch? Nah.

Bruce Cassidy? Sure, but there’s a catch: He’s technically off the market. The Golden Knights, classy to the last, refuse to let their former coach out of a contract that runs through 2027 — even though they’d relieved him of his duties with eight games to go in the regular season.

After Carle or Cassidy, whom the Vegas brass have locked up in in dungeon near Circus Circus, the pickings look awfully slim.

Which, we’ll grant you, isn’t the sexiest reason to run it back with Bednar. But we’ll give you another rationale: Joe Sakic is inheriting something of a hot mess, at least as championship-level teams go.

Sakic built the best house on the NHL’s block four years ago. But when he handed the keys over to Chris MacFarland, the maintenance costs went through the roof. Which, by the way, now leaks when it rains.

When MacFarland left the Avs’ general manager post to run the Nashville Predators on Tuesday, he left a pile of bills on the kitchen table and the basement unfinished. Colorado has roughly $3 million of cap space available for ’26-27 and only 17 players under contract. The Avalanche don’t have a first-round pick until 2029.

MacFarland took a Kyle Schwarber approach to roster management — C-Mac swung hard and swung from his heels, but the misses could be heard for miles. Trading Mikko Rantanen was supposed to ease the cap strain for ’26-27 and ’27-28, but the Avs landed back on that track anyway thanks to the Martin Necas contract. Swapping out Rantanen and Bo Byram didn’t age well. Neither did hanging onto Samuel Girard for as long as they did.

Cale Makar is expected to undergo surgery that will almost surely delay the start of his ’26-27 season. Also, he’s eligible for a contract extension on July 1 that could almost double his current cap number of $9 million. Necas is making $11.5 million a year through 2034 to be a playoff ghost. Brock Nelson, your 2C, is making $7.5 million a year to play defense.

Captain Gabe Landeskog turns 34 in November; Scott Wedgewood turns 34 in August. Devon Toews turns 33 next February. Valeri Nichushkin will be 32 in March. Nazem Kadri will be 36 in the fall. Nelson and Josh Manson will turn 35 in October.

, the Avs are on a track to use 56.1% of their expected ’26-27 cap space on players 31 years of age or older. That’s a lot of old dogs to try and teach new tricks.

Bednar isn’t nearly as divisive a winner as Sean Payton, but he’s getting closer by the summer. Like Sunshine Sean, Bedsy offers a high floor, good-to-brilliant regular seasons, and inevitable playoff heartbreak brought on by a combination of stubbornness and the inability to adapt on the fly. Every time that second title looks close, something happens that snatches the dream away.

A decade of Bednar has produced one Stanley Cup title, two conference final appearances and four second-round exits. For a team whose core has at least two future Hall-of-Famers in Nathan MacKinnon and Makar, and featured a third in Rantanen for most of Bednar’s era, that feels like a slightly underwhelming return on the trophy front. Very good suddenly feels very stale.

Fun fact: Seven of the last nine Western Conference championship coaches got to the Stanley Cup Final within their first 12 months on the job — including John Tortorella in Vegas, who’d only landed the gig in April.

Counter: Six of the last nine Eastern Conference-winning coaches were on their jobs six years or longer when they reached the Cup Final.

The last eight Cup championship-winning coaches did so with about four seasons with their current team already under their belts, on average. A quick-strike hire might get you there, but they usually don’t get over the line — the Final coach with the most tenure with a franchise has won three of the last five Cups and five of the last eight.

Bedsy also hasn’t lost the locker room, for whatever that’s worth. MacKinnon trusts him, which is no mean feat. Logan O’Connor has told me in multiple chats over multiple seasons that players appreciate Jared’s steady, calm voice during a nine-month grind.

“His work ethic and his preparation is something that there is zero complacency in what he does day-to-day,” O’Connor, the former Pios star, said last spring. “How (Bednar) operates, the meetings he runs, the message he delivers, what he expects from players, having good relationships with players — I think he creates a clear picture of how he wants us to play.

“And that goes from first line to fourth line, individuals to power play to penalty kill. I think you know exactly the expectations that he has for you. And then it’s on us to go out there and execute those expectations. I think he just has the utmost respect from us players. And it’s no surprise that he’s had as great of a run as he has, given the volatility in the (coaching) market. And we all love playing for him.”

For Sakic and the Kroenkes, the question of Bednar, whose current contract extension expires at the end of next season, is largely this:

Do you prefer something safe and predictable — 50-plus wins in the regular season, followed by a second-round postseason exit — or the crap shoot of a new coaching hire?

Do you want to be hockey’s version of the ’90s Atlanta Braves? Or do you want to roll the dice? After being shamed on The Strip, we’re about to find out if Super Joe’s still in a gambling mood.

“As a player, you’re going to have stretches where you’re not on the scoresheet and where (Makar) could still be helping the team,” TNT analyst and former NHL center told me earlier this month. “And where Cale could still be having an impact.”

To put it another way: How much did you enjoy seeing Colorado, minus Makar, struggle to score three goals over Games 1 and 2 of the Western Conference Final?

Look, we get it. Yes, the Avs Yes, Makar is due for a contract extension as soon as July 1. Yes, that extension will probably be worth anywhere from $15-17 million per season — a healthy bump from the $9-million cap hit Makar commanded in ’25-26.

The Avs need cap space. They need draft picks. They need to get younger and fresher on the ice. They need more roster flexibility off it.

Let’s workshop this. No bad ideas.

Trade Makar!

OK, except for that one.

With an aging lineup and a shrinking Stanley Cup window, it’s definitely time to think outside the box.

Last week hurt. Vegas hurt. Be angry. Be vigilant. Just don’t be silly. Any executive shopping Makar should be exiled to

In NHL history, Makar had already done it twice by the age of 27. He won’t turn 30 until October 2028. Just get a load of the other names on the list to pull that off multiple times: Paul Coffey (seven times), Bobby Orr (six), Al MacInnis (three), Dennis Potvin (three) and Phil Housley (twice).

Trade Makar for draft picks!

Who let Jeff Bridich in here?

Depth matters in the postseason. A lot. The old adage that you go as far as your top two lines in the regular season and as far as your bottom two in the playoffs still holds up. Brock Nelson, Artturi Lehkonen, Nicolas Roy and Logan O’Connor, all of whom provided some juice against the Kings and Wild, combined for zero goals and one point against Vegas. One lousy point.

That said, anyone who tells you that a team can’t win a Stanley Cup with multiple players making $10 million or more isn’t your friend. For one, the salary cap is a moving target. For another, Florida won back-to-back titles with Aleksander Barkov and Sergei Bobrovsky on eight-figure cap hits.

Plus, two words: Mikko Rantanen.

But we won the trade!

Did you, though?

Martin Necas is one of the few forwards, granted, who can skate with Nathan MacKinnon at full tilt. No. 88 reads the game well. He also can spend so much time looking for the perfect pass that whole shifts pass him by.

The Marty Party produced one postseason goal in 2026. He’s put up two goals over 20 playoff games (with 16 helpers) for Colorado so far. He’s due to cost you $11.5 million in every cap year through 2033-34.

To general manager Chris MacFarland’s credit, he’s tried to avoid a roster that becomes too top-heavy, too Oilers South, with MacKinnon accounting for a $12.6-milion cap number and raises for Necas and Makar looming. But moving Cale just to stay in that neighborhood would be sheer Looney Tunes.

Even a shallow dive into the metrics makes Makar critics look all wet. No. 8 has strung together arguably his two least-impactful postseasons, back-to-back, in ’24-25 and ’25-26, largely due to injury. And yet, , he still logged 456 minutes and change in front of the Lumberyard tandem of Scott Wedgewood and Mackenzie Blackwood in goal. When No. 8 has been on the ice over the Avs’ last 20 playoff games, Colorado’s giving up 1.97 goals per 60 minutes in all strengths. With Makar on the bench, the Avs have allowed 2.92 goals per 60. That’s a difference of a goal per game in regulation — even before you factor in the offensive side of Makar’s arsenal.

Among NHL defensive tandems this postseason that have played at least 30 minutes together, the Makar-Devon Toews pairing still ranks fifth overall among playoff expected goals percentage (64%, with eight expected goals for and 4.5 goals expected against). That’s up from 13th a year ago (58.5%, 6.2 expected goals for and 4.4 against) and 14th in ’23-24 (58.3%, 6.3 expected goals for and 4.5 against).

“I guess the (heart) of the matter is, the numbers are what they are,” Olcyzk said of Makar. “His impact — they have such a deep team, they’re going to be able to get contributions in points from a lot of different guys. But he is always going to have an impact, and you always have to account for him, if you’re the other team. It’s just a matter of time before he gets on that heater and he has a four-or five-point game.”

There’s a fine blue line The Avalanche, however wounded, however shamed, however desperate, surely know better than to cross it.

Mikko Rantanen sent his friends and former teammates home in a blur — his third-period hat trick and assist to erase a 2-0 deficit happened in the final 13 minutes of a do-or-die Game 7. That painful night in Dallas now feels merciful, compared with what this Avs team just experienced. A four-game sweep by the Vegas Golden Knights was somehow worse. It was an internal injury diagnosed too late, triggering a week-long spiral of physical and mental anguish.

“I think it just feels like a waste, to be honest,” Avs forward Logan O’Connor said. “Eighty-two games, you get tons of great pieces and feel as though you have a team that can do something special. We said it in training camp — it’s Cup or bust for us. Regardless of where you fall short, we fell super short of that goal.”

For nine months, that loss in Dallas looked like a prologue, the catalyst for a historic start to this season and eventual legacy-cementing championship for Jared Bednar, Nathan MacKinnon, Cale Makar and the rest of the Avs who reached the mountaintop five years ago but have languished through a variety of playoff disappointments since.

The Avs won the most games, scored the most goals and allowed the fewest during a dominant regular season. They steamrolled through the first half of the tournament, losing just once while scoring more than four goals per game.

Then the Golden Knights broke them. It took a week — a blink of an eye in the context of a long season, but the adjectives to describe how players felt in the Avalanche locker room Tuesday night were strikingly similar to that night in Dallas.

“Frustration. Sadness, I guess,” Avs defenseman Josh Manson said. “Really felt like we had a good team. We didn’t do the job. We lost. The expectations for this organization are high. And, just … didn’t go the way we wanted.”

By Game 4 of this series, the only way to tell it was the Avs on the ice at T-Mobile Arena was the uniforms. Colorado looked nothing like the team that demoralized opponents all year with its offensive and defensive prowess.

Every aspect of the Avs’ invincibility was punctured by a team that fired its head coach 51 days before this Western Conference final began and lost more games than it won during the regular season.

Colorado scored just seven goals in four games for the first time since early in the 2023-24 season. Scott Wedgewood, the NHL’s leader in goals against average and save percentage, was outplayed by a goaltender who, this time a year ago, was one of five defendants in a messy sexual assault trial and who wasn’t signed to an NHL contract until late October.

This Avs team was 45-0 when leading after two periods, until Vegas made it 45-1 in Game 2. Colorado was 52-0 when building a multi-goal lead at any point in a game, until Vegas made it 52-1 in Game 3.

This was the deepest team in the NHL, built to survive the war of attrition in the Stanley Cup playoffs. It was one of the healthiest teams in the league as well, but by the end of this run, the Avs’ injury luck was nearly as bad as their shooting woes.

Everything was leading to one outcome for the Avs — a second championship in five years, another parade and immortality for all the key figures. A week later, everything has changed, and there’s just as much uncertainty — maybe more — than the morning after Rantanen donned a green-and-black cape in Game 7.

“I mean, this one … I feel like it¶¶Òõap going to take some time to kind of digest and process,” Avs forward Brock Nelson said. “I’m not worried about next year right now.”

A more complicated offseason

Colorado’s offseason looked pretty straightforward a week ago.

Brett Kulak and Brent Burns are unrestricted free agents. Jack Drury is a restricted free agent. The biggest potential storyline was Cale Makar’s massive new contract, but that one doesn’t start until the following season.

The Avs have very little cap space, so someone under contract will likely need to be traded to retain Drury and one of the defensemen, or to replace Kulak and Burns. Pretty simple stuff, relative to what other offseasons might look like.

Now? Everything has to be on the table.

The questions begin with the future of the coaching staff. Colorado fired one of Jared Bednar’s longtime lieutenants, Ray Bennett, last May after the power play failed in the Dallas series. The power play was still a problem for much of this season, the one source of consternation, even when all of the other parts of this club were at the peak of their powers.

If the Avalanche decide to let Bednar go, he would be fielding calls from other NHL teams before the end of the day. The one candidate who has a resume similar to Bednar’s who isn’t currently one of the 32 head coaches is the guy John Tortorella replaced in Sin City, Bruce Cassidy. But one of the biggest off-ice stories of this postseason has been the Golden Knights denying Edmonton and Los Angeles permission to speak with Cassidy because he’s still under contract with Vegas.

The next major question, with both short- and long-term ramifications, is the state of the roster. This team was built to win the Stanley Cup in 2026, and every core piece is under contract at least through next year.

That felt like a great thing 10 days ago. If this Avs team did go on to win the Stanley Cup, they’d be one of the top favorites for 2026-27 as well.

Now? The Avs looked old against the Golden Knights. Beyond Burns, who will be 41 when next season begins, Colorado has six key figures who will be 32 or older when the 2027 Stanley Cup Playoffs begin — Nazem Kadri, Brock Nelson and Manson will be 35 or older, while Gabe Landeskog, Wedgewood and Devon Toews will all be at least 32.

Then there are Valeri Nichushkin and Artturi Lehkonen. Having those two excellent two-way players on team-friendly contracts has been part of Colorado’s secret sauce since 2022. No other NHL team has two secondary stars like them when they are healthy and playing well.

Their style of play and injury history, not to mention Nichushkin’s off-ice troubles, have made them high-risk, high-reward players in recent seasons. Lehkonen was hurt in the second round and far off his typical impact against Vegas. Nichushkin couldn’t finish the conference final because of an injury, and this year was his worst per-game offensive output since the 2020-21 campaign.

Martin Necas is the youngest core player on the team, but his new contract at $11.5 million per season kicks in next year. He was great against Minnesota, but the external allegations that he isn’t a postseason player resurfaced after he was one of the least impactful players on the roster against Vegas.

The Avs chose not to move any core players after losing to Dallas last year. The rationale was that they shook up the roster so much in-season that some stability going into this year would help fuel another run.

For nine months, that plan looked perfect. Staying the course looks far more uncertain now.

“I certainly hope so,” Landeskog said when asked if this core has another run in it. “I believe in that.

“It’s hard, but I think at the end of the day, if there’s one thing I learned over the last handful of years, it’s get knocked down, you just get right back up. Yeah, that’s the only way to do it.”

The team that was leading the 2026 Stanley Cup Playoffs in goals per game after two rounds — a club that scored nine times in one game against a strong defensive team three weeks ago — managed just seven in the entire Western Conference Final.

Of all the reasons why the Colorado Avalanche are no longer participating in this tournament, that is the hardest one to fathom.

“I felt like we were generating enough to create chances, doing enough things to find the back of the net a couple times, and yeah, it just comes down to one chance,” Avs star defenseman Cale Makar said. “I felt like every game in this series was like that.”

The Avs scored 298 goals in the regular season, seven more than the Carolina Hurricanes at the top of the league. They had scored 37 in nine games through the first two rounds of the postseason.

Other things went wrong while the Vegas Golden Knights completed one of the most shocking sweeps in recent NHL postseason history. Vegas won the goaltending battle in the first three games. The Avs made mistakes at critical times, which gave the Golden Knights great scoring chances.

But the offense going Arctic Circle levels of cold is the most shocking issue. Colorado hadn’t been held to fewer than eight goals in any four-game stretch since Oct. 26-Nov. 4, 2023.

“I think it¶¶Òõap their checking game and I thought Carter Hart had an incredible series at times,” Avs coach Jared Bednar said. “Sometimes I think we did a good job. Like I said before, you’re looking at this series going into this final game, the analytics are tight, they’re close in all aspects.

“(Hart) played really well and I think their team made it super difficult to create quality looks and when we did he made the saves. That had all something to do with it.”

The Avs feeling like they were getting enough chances, but not converting them was a theme throughout the series. That was definitely true in Game 1.

Colorado finished that game with 38 shots on net. The Avs also generated 4.44 expected goals, the second-most during this postseason run, but lost 4-2.

The next three games, the Avs did not create enough chances, or generate enough expected goals. It may have felt like they did, and in relation to what Vegas was producing, it was as Bednar put it, very tight.

But, the Avs generated 6.69 expected goals in Games 2-4 combined. The individual totals were three of the four worst outputs in the 2026 playoffs for Colorado. That’s an average of 2.23 per contest.

The Avs had just six games in the regular season where they generated 2.23 expected goals or less.

Colorado shot the puck more than Vegas did in this series. The Avs even had more scoring chances, at least before Game 4. The Golden Knights had a 75-72 advantage in scoring chances over the final three games.

But getting into the dirty areas and creating the best scoring chances was a huge problem. The Avalanche generated six high-danger scoring chances in each of the final three games of this series. They had just two in the third periods of those games — both in Game 3.

“I think we were generating looks still, but we just couldn’t get them in the net,” Avs defenseman Devon Toews said. “That’s the way it goes at times. There are times in the regular season where you might go 10 games where’s it just really hard to score goals.

“We went four games here where we couldn’t quite get enough to push it over the line and push a couple of games into our column.”

The individual results from this series were as improbable as the result. Colorado had six players score 20 or more goals this season.

Nathan MacKinnon, Martin Necas, Brock Nelson, Cale Makar, Parker Kelly and Artturi Lehkonen combined for 186 goals this season. None of those six players scored a goal against the Golden Knights.

Nelson had two quality chances and set up a third during one shift in Game 4. He hit the crossbar with a chance that might have curtailed Vegas’ comeback plans in Game 3. He’s had great postseasons before with the New York Islanders.

He called this the most frustrating playoff experience of his career. He might not be alone in the Colorado locker room.

“I felt like in a couple of the games, we had our fair share of looks and they didn’t go in,” Nelson said. “Yeah, which obviously it¶¶Òõap all the more frustrating right now.

“I mean, this one … I feel like it¶¶Òõap going to take some time to kind of digest and process.”

That is all that stood between Gabe Landeskog and an ending that would make Disney executives blush.

He became the first professional hockey player to return to the NHL last May after knee cartilage transplant surgery, nothing short of a Hail Mary procedure that saved his career.

This was going to be the bookend chapter for one of the most respected athletes in Colorado sports history. Landeskog, 33, was not going to retire, but he was going to be remembered for this second act forever.

The Captain. And the Cup. Again.

Instead, the clock struck midnight and the valet brought the keys back to a pumpkin.

The Avs became a group of falling stars, going splat and getting swept by the Golden Knights in an unspeakably awful series.

A week ago, the Avs believed they could win another championship. Now, it is fair to wonder if they blew it with this group.

“I mean, you never know if you’re ever going to get the chance again. I think that’s what hurts, right?” Landeskog, always accountable, said in the visiting locker room after the 2-1 Game 4 loss. “Like, it’s hard making the playoffs, and it’s hard winning one round and two rounds, and let alone going all the way, so never know what the next opportunity is going to kind of look like and present itself looking like, but I think for us, believing in this group, believing in the guys that we have in this organization and that will give ourselves the best chance possible year after year.”

In a series that somehow featured no goals from Nathan MacKinnon, Cale Makar, Martin Necas and Brock Nelson, Landeskog carried his weight. He scored three times, including the lone goal on Tuesday night with 2:03 remaining in the game.

Predictably, Landeskog, a captain for 14 years, took zero solace in his performance.

The Avs began the season on a Stanley Cup-or-bust wagon. Becoming only the seventh No. 1 seed to be swept is not how anyone in the organization expected this season to end.

“Yeah, it’s empty, there’s no other way to describe it, really. Yeah, felt good about our team, still do, but you got to give these guys credit on the other side,” Landeskog said. “They’re good, played hard, Carter Hart, heck of a goalie, heck of a series, so, but yeah, you go from being in the battle and all of a sudden the buzzer goes and season’s over. It’s a weird feeling to try to describe to people, but empty is probably the way to do it.”

The Avs scored seven times in four games. Coach Jared Bednar, who is facing external criticism and questions about his future, praised the Golden Knights’ checking and goaltending.

The Western Conference Final is the farthest the Avs have reached since raising the Stanley Cup after the 2022 season. While this might have been the best chance to win it again, Landeskog wants this group to take another run at it next season.

“I certainly hope so. I believe in that,” Landeskog said.

On a somber night in Las Vegas, a feeling far too common for far too many in this city, Landeskog talked through the pain. This hurt. But he has come back from worse.

“I mean, it’s 32 teams that are trying to win it. It’s hard, but I think at the end of the day, if there’s one thing I learned over the last handful of years, it’s get knocked down, you just get right back up,” Landeskog said. “Yeah, that’s the only way to do it.”

The 2026 Western Conference Final was played anywhere Vegas wanted it. The corners. The boards. The neutral zone. In between the Avalanche players’ ears, mostly.

The Golden Knights turned the NHL’s fastest team into a Corvette on cinder blocks. This wasn’t just a sweep. It was Hartbreak. It was arguably the biggest Colorado sports choke since Broncos-Jaguars in ’96. It was six days in May we’ll never get back. It was so bad, David Adelman cringed.

“Disappointed. Humiliated,” Avs forward Logan O’Connor, as stand-up as they come, told reporters at T-Mobile Arena after his season ended in a 2-1 defeat. “I think, to a man, (we) just weren’t good enough. Not a single guy was the whole entire series.”

The Golden Knights burned with hunger, fear and desperation, especially at Ball Arena, where the tone for disaster was set. Vegas players pounded the glass and drove the puck as if they’d just watched their coach get fired on March 29 — and any one of them could be next.

The Avs played hurt, yes. They also played fat and happy in Games 1 and 2. They carried the look of a roster with guaranteed contracts and guaranteed tee times, the harbinger of a fore-game sweep.

That starts at the top.

Stan Kroenke and Josh Kroenke are hoops, football and soccer guys first. They treat the Avs like a burgundy-headed stepchild. They love that their little hockey team, at least compared to the Nuggets, is a no-drama llama. They’re happy to let Joe Sakic sweat the small stuff.

Vegas fans brought the brooms Tuesday night. It’s time Super Joe started swinging his around.

The Avalanche are too stubborn. Too comfortable. If general manager Chris MacFarland wants to leave the Front Range to go rebuild the Nashville Predators, let him. C-Mac’s re-arranged deck chairs about 17 times since the Avs won it all five years ago. All it’s done is make the best fans in hockey angrier and the best roster in the game older. Way, way, waaaay older.

Once Cale Makar was out and Nathan MacKinnon got dinged in the knee, Colorado began to show its age. Brent Burns turns 42 in March. Nazem Kadri will be 36 in October; Brock Nelson and Josh Manson turn 35 that month. Scott Wedgewood turns 34 in August. Captain Gabe Landeskog turns 34 in November. Devon Toews turns 33 next February; Valeri Nichushkin will be 32 in March.

The Avs wouldn’t be running it back in 2027. They’d be hobbling. And hobbling , the smallest cushion in the NHL.

“How big their window? I don’t want to say it’s closing. But it’s not opening,” former Avs great Erik Johnson, now an ESPN analyst,

“They’ve already played (the) shake-up-your-core card with (Mikko) Rantanen, right? So they’ve played that card. What’s the next card they play, if they still feel like their window’s open — which I think it is?”

Play the Joker, Super Joe. Go wild.

The Avs need fresh eyes. Fresh legs. Fresh voices. Fresh ideas. Almost every “tough guy” MacFarland acquired lost their edge once they moved to the mountains. Almost every 2C revamp since a younger Kadri left five years ago eventually crashed or burned. Jared Bednar has become the George Karl of Avs coaches — a regular-season savant and a playoff fraud.

Bednar’s white board during the playoffs never seems to have an answer for a team that takes away the rush, clogs the neutral zone and clamps down on the tempo. Once Bedsy finds a Plan B in May, he rarely sticks to it. Colorado appeared out of gas by midway through Game 3 of the Western Conference Final. Zone entries stunk. Zone exits stunk. A team with the best record in the NHL looked like strangers playing pick-up on the pond.

Injuries? Cry us a river. Dallas beat the Avs in the first round of the ’25 playoffs without Jason Robertson and Miro Heiskanen. The Knights didn’t have captain Mark Stone for Games 1 and 2 in Denver. Injuries in the Stanley Cup are excuses — everybody’s got them. You find a path. You find a way.

The Avs rolled over. Over the last 13 minutes of the second period and the first eight minutes of the third stanza, Colorado, while trailing 1-0 in a do-or-die contest, got one shot off. One. When Vegas’ Tomas Hertl appeared to interfere with Martin Necas with 8:04 left in the second frame, the latter went down in a heap while the former just laughed. No call. MacKinnon got tripped. No call. Vegas had too many men. No call.

The bracket says a VGK sweep had to be a fluke. It wasn’t. Vegas goalie Carter Hart, icky narrative and all, was the best player in the series. The Avs ran into a bigger, smarter, sharper version of the Kings. Yet while Los Angeles knew it was out of its weight class from the jump, John Tortorella’s guys smelled a sucker with a soft underbelly. Play with your food against Vegas, they’ll take your lunch money and ransack the kitchen.

At least it was over with early, unlike Game 3’s cruel cosmic joke. Kadri didn’t track Stone some 4:42 into Game 4, and the sight of the 57-year-old winger somehow beating Kadri and Makar down the ice, then backhanding Vegas into a 1-0 lead, summed up a series in all its agony.

The hockey gods twisted a rusty knife with 6:08 left in the opening stanza. Nelson beat the Vegas defense for a point-blank look in front of the Golden Knights’ crease, not all that different from the chance Stone got. Only No. 11 fired high and saw his puck snatched out of the air by Hart, the way your uncle used to catch a mosquito and squash it in his palm.

“I think Jared Bednar is a heck of a coach,” Johnson opined. “But at the same time, if you go through the window of Landeskog, MacKinnon and Makar, and you only get one Cup in that whole Avalanche era of their greatness, I think that’s a failure, right?”

Darn straight. If you can’t find Plan B on the ice, it’s time to find it somewhere else. Until the Avs feel uncomfortable, no one should ever feel truly comfortable about them lifting Lord Stanley again.

Everyone thinks Jared Bednar is a great guy. But he is no longer a good fit for the Avalanche.

He is the best coach in franchise history. Yet, running it back would be the worst thing the organization could do.

Bednar’s resume saved him when the Avs fizzled for three consecutive years after winning the Stanley Cup.

What happened in this Western Conference Final hit different.

The best team in hockey was clobbered. The Avs were broomed away like so many cigarette butts and plastic daiquiri cups, the seventh No. 1 seed swept in NHL history.

BTS came back and performed at Allegiant Stadium across the interstate. BTA (belt to bleep) returned in Game 4 at T-Mobile Arena.

The Golden Knights, so underwhelming and uninspiring that they fired their coach with eight games remaining in the season, put the Avs out of their misery with a 2-1 victory.

Leave the miracles to Mike Eruzione, the 2004 Boston Red Sox and that perm-coiffed dude who married Selena Gomez.

This Avs’ exit needs to come with a major announcement, that president Joe Sakic and general manager Chris MacFarland have decided to dismiss Bednar with one year remaining on his contract.

There is no joy in writing this. It is not all Bednar’s fault that the Avs picked a bad week to play their worst hockey, failing to win a game in a playoff series for the first time since 2008. They almost got shut out in a closeout.

So, let’s meet in the middle and say half the onus is on Bednar because of a system that no longer works in the postseason against defensive-minded, possession-oriented pests like the Dallas Stars and Knights.

Just like their matchup against Las Vegas, the Avs are boxed in, frustrated, with no easy way out. Some version of this problem arose when Seattle and Dallas eliminated the Avs, but there was compelling evidence to stick with the coach, given Valeri Nichushkin’s absences and Gabe Landeskog’s injury.

There is no good reason for what just happened over the past six days. Only excuses.

Are the Avs, a team that won 16 more games than the Golden Knights during the regular season, so fragile that they stood no chance without Cale Makar for two games and Nathan MacKinnon compromised for a few periods?

All we talked about was their depth, starting in October and louder after the trade deadline in March when MacFarland cemented his executive-of-the-year status.

They were a Noah’s Ark team — two of everything. And no player could sway the outcome in one game? Embarrassing.

Captain Mark Stone missed the first two games of this series, and it did not undermine Las Vegas. He was a catalytic force on Tuesday, catching a long lob in stride behind the defense in the first period, most notably Nazem Kadri, and whipping it around Mackenzie Blackwood’s left leg for a 1-0 lead.

If not for Blackwood’s acrobatics, the Avs would have been routed.

Still, the Golden Knights were winning.

After the particularly disturbing Game 3 loss, when the Avs lost for only the second time in 76 playoff games when leading by three goals, Colorado resorted to whimpering.

Down 3-0, Bednar kept pointing to the metrics, insisting they were dead even. OK, Kenny Atkinson. How about we simmer down on the analytics and focus more on the manalytics.

When the Avs needed a big hit, big shot or big stop, they failed to deliver. That is what defines the postseason: shining in the clutch. Under Bednar’s watch, the Avs wilted under the LED lights washing over Bruno Mars Drive and The Strip.

The players are not blameless.

MacKinnon did not produce a goal in the series. Marty Necas, paid to provide the big performances previously delivered by Mikko Rantanen, had one in the postseason.

Brock Nelson aged like Keith Richards, and never looked the same after returning from the Olympics. Devon Toews made costly mistakes unbecoming of a player of his caliber. Kadri did not plug in the power play — 1-for-10 against Las Vegas. And even before he got hurt, Nichushkin did nothing of note.

So many breakdowns. So many errors in their own zone.

Does some of that fall on Bednar? Sure.

“At the end of the day, coaches are coaches,” Makar said in a somber postgame locker room. “He means so much to this team, and he’s allowed us to play our games and process that from years and years for this. He deserves a lot of credit for getting us to this point. Again, he’s not playing the game, he’s not out on the ice.

He’s giving us everything we possibly can, information-wise, to go out there and be the best we can be, and unfortunately … you feel like you let people down. He’s one of those guys that you feel like worked so hard, the whole coaching staff, everybody. You just feel like you let them down a little bit.”

Bednar could have changed line combinations sooner. Could have tweaked the power play lineup. Could have challenged bad calls with ferocious intensity. Could have pulled Scott Wedgewood in favor of Blackwood after the second goal on Sunday.

In reality, there is no single reason why Bednar should go. It is the aggregate.

For the past four years, the Avs have not only failed to raise another Cup — we can all agree one is not enough with this core — they have not reached the championship round.

Stand pat, always an option for Kroenke Sports, and the Avs might be a top seed again. But the regular season is not the problem. The Avs have aced those pop quizzes.

The playoffs are the final. Or the Final, if you will. That is a huge part of the grade when entering with title-or-bust expectations.

Since 2022, they are 0-for-4.

Truth is, if two-time champion Mike Shanahan can get fired by the Broncos, no professional Colorado sports coach should be safe forever. Shanahan, the GM, got Shanahan, the coach, canned. Bednar’s scheme is what could do him in.

For those defending Bednar, it is understandable. It is also misguided.

The Avs are stuck with multiple big contracts — MacKinnon, soon-to-be Makar, Landeskog, Necas, Kadri, Nelson, Toews, Blackwood, Sam Malinski — that will limit their movement unless they are willing to eat money.

It is much easier to switch out the person standing behind the bench than those sitting on it.

This could go one of two ways, like most things. The Avs thank Bednar for his services and hire a young genius like DU’s David Carle or a veteran like Bruce Cassidy. Then, they win a Cup.

Or Bednar succeeds elsewhere, and the Avs fade, making it clear the players, not the system, were the problem.

It is worth finding out.

The feeling is that Avs officials never want to pull the plug on Bednar because they like him and love how he works with everyone (which is why his situation is not comparable to Michael Malone with the Nuggets).

Whatever the case, ownership has given Sakic and MacFarland freedom to try everything the past two seasons with roster upgrades. After this playoff meltdown, they now have a responsibility they can no longer shirk.

As hard as it might be, it is time for Bednar to go because sticking with him, as the series with Las Vegas showed, is a losing bet.