That wasn’t part of Nelson’s development path, and he’s certainly OK with that. Labeling himself a bit of a late bloomer, staying home for Nelson allowed him to take part in one of hockey’s greatest events — the Minnesota state high school tournament at then-Xcel Energy Center in St. Paul.

“The small school tourney — at the time that was the coolest thing as a high school, getting down there to play at The X,” Nelson said. “It wasn’t a sellout for the smaller schools like it was for the (Class) AA schools, but it was still a great rink for that.”

Nelson and Sam Malinski are both proud Minnesotans. They will both get the chance to play at home in the Stanley Cup Playoffs this series as the Colorado Avalanche take on the Wild. Game 1 is Sunday night at Ball Arena. The rest of the series remains TBD, but Games 3 and 4 at the recently renamed Grand Casino Arena should be special for the “State of Hockey” kids.

Malinski played at Class AA Lakeville South, which is a touch under 30 miles south of St. Paul. His team finished third in the state tournament in 2017. That included a consolation game overtime loss to Eden Prairie, which had one of the great players in Minnesota high school hockey history on its roster … ex-Avalanche center Casey Mittelstadt.

“It’s going to be really fun,” Malinski said. “Just kind of like any other game against Minnesota, I’ve sort of grown out of those nerves about playing at home.”

Nelson went to Warrod High School, which is about a six-hour drive from the Twin Cities and just south of the border with Canada. Warroad is a town of fewer than 2,000 people, but it has a storied hockey history. Nelson’s family is a big part of that, and he joined his uncle, grandfather and great-uncle as U.S. Olympic gold medalists in February.

He got to play in the state tournament twice, finishing third in his junior year and as the runners-up his senior season. Malinski went to Cornell, but Nelson spent two years at North Dakota, which meant more postseason hockey in St. Paul.

Nelson won the old WCHA conference tournament in 2011 and 2012, defeating the University of Denver in the final both years. Both of his college seasons also ended at The X, with a Frozen Four semifinal loss to Michigan in 2010 and a regional final loss to Minnesota in 2011.

“It will be a little bit different,” Nelson said of finally playing Stanley Cup Playoffs games in that building in his 13th NHL season. “I’m trying not to think too much of it like that, just business as usual and a work trip. It’s a little bit different than in season, when you’re trying to think about seeing some family and friends you haven’t seen in a while.

“Now is not the time for that. We’ll put that on pause and see them in the summer.”

The Avs found out they will be playing Minnesota late Thursday night, when the Wild finished off the Dallas Stars in Game 6 with a raucous Grand Casino crowd celebrating the franchise’s first series victory since 2015. The text messages from friends and family back home started pouring in that night.

Malinski said the ticket requests haven’t been too bad, so far. Nelson said an old neighbor reached out almost immediately after the game with what might have been a rhetorical question about him getting to play at home in the next round.

Nelson was born five months to the day after the only Game 1 in Stanley Cup Final history involving a team from Minnesota, when the old North Stars faced the Pittsburgh Penguins for the 1991 championship. Malinski was nearing his fifth birthday when the Wild made their greatest run in franchise history, reaching the Western Conference Final in 2003.

The core guys from that team were definitely part of Malinski’s childhood.

“I don’t know if it was my first game, but I definitely remember going to one game with grandfather and my two brothers,” Malinski said. “That was back when like Mikko Koivu and Marian Gaborik were on the team. It was a good memory for me.”

Both of the Minnesota boys on Colorado’s roster are ready to create new lifetime memories in St. Paul during this playoff series.

Three decades ago, there were Jordan Rules implemented by the Detroit Pistons. Now, there are the Jokic Rules carried out by Lilliputians.

It is not basketball.

It is part strategy, part WWE. It seems inspired by Detroit Lions coach Dan Campbell, who famously said, “when you knock us down we’re going to get up, and on the way up we’re going to bite a kneecap off.”

If the guards like Utah’s Keyonte George and the Lakers’ Marcus Smart focused on fronting Jokic, it would be understandable. But they purposely box their butts into his legs, trying to get Jokic to tumble over or trip on his own feet. That is not defense. That is some Humpty Dumpty bull(bleep).

The Jazz and Lakers followed the same blueprint that is almost guaranteed to reappear Monday night in Oklahoma City. Alex Caruso relishes making Jokic miserable. He is an elite defender. And should be above this gimmick. He likely won’t be.

Teams have no incentive to stop if the refs don’t enforce the rules. Jokic doesn’t help himself by complaining, a habit he has fallen back into over the last month. But, he has the right to defend himself with the way he is getting defended.

One solution is for Jokic to fall forward when they back into his knees, squashing anyone and anything below. It would be worth it if not for the fact that Jokic is coming off a knee injury, and any slight twist or tweak could end the Nuggets’ season.

So what is the answer if the refs continue to let guards harass the big man?

Screens and picks. And more screens. And more picks. It will look weird. But if Bruce Brown or Aaron Gordon sets a blind pick as Jokic goes to the corner that will ease the appetite of the defenders to latch onto the center’s legs like yapping Chihuahuas. Running motion across the face of the defenders will also put them on notice for a screen or an “accidental” bump to the chest.

Jokic will always inspire inventive ways to stop him. This, though, has to stop. The refs need a more active whistle, and the Nuggets players need to protect Jokic from defenders and himself.

Russell vs. Sean, part 4 or 5?: Russell Wilson clapped back at Sean Payton. This passive-aggressive feud continues to feature smoldering embers. For those keeping score, Payton took a shot at Wilson after the Broncos beat the Giants, saying, “I was talking to (Giants owner) John Mara, and I said, ‘We were hoping that that change would have happened long after our game.'” It was meant as a compliment to Jaxson Dart.

Understandably, Wilson did not see it that way, tweeting, “Classless … but not surprised. Didn’t realize you’re still bounty hunting 15+ years later through the media.” OK, fair. So, why is Wilson still talking about it four months later? Wilson said recently on the Bussin’ with the Boys podcast that, “I know who I am as a competitor, as a warrior, as a champion, and you know, I’ve beaten Sean, too. You know, like we’ve been in the same place and the same thing. … Just don’t disrespect me.”

This reminds me of when George Constanza was devouring food in “Seinfeld,” and co-worker Reilly quipped, “You know George, the ocean called, they are all out of shrimp.” Constanza failed to volley, and planned a Firestone snow tire night weeks later to exact revenge. He repeated his eating habits, and the ocean line followed. Constanza countered with “The jerk store called and they are all out of you.” The comeback fell flat. Wilson had a better retort, but it was too late. And frankly, where was this courage in 2023 when Payton unloaded on Wilson at Detroit? Payton makes enemies. No question. But if you are going to come at him again, there should be a statute of limitations.

Then he encountered a rough patch unlike anything he’d ever experienced last year with the Colorado Avalanche. It cost him a chance to settle at a place he thought might become home.

It also gave him time to reflect on a whirlwind two years that saw him uprooted twice — and helped him realize that when times get tough, he needs to work on putting down the shovel.

“Sometimes you almost care too much, and it’s better to go out and play carefree and not worry about the consequences as much,” Mittelstadt said. “It’s something I’ve struggled with, I would say, my whole career, not just even pro hockey. Something I’m definitely working on and going to continue to work on.

“I think all of us are so competitive, and to some degree, we’re all perfectionists. Sometimes you get a little hard on yourself and get in that hole.”

Mittelstadt returned to Ball Arena with the Boston Bruins on Saturday, back to the site of the worst hole he’s ever encountered. He arrived in Denver in a shocking trade that saw the Avs send their best young player, defenseman Bo Byram, to Buffalo for Mittelstadt, who was expected to be part of the core of the next great Sabres team.

It was the type of one-for-one challenge trade of young players with immense potential that rarely happens in the NHL. Mittelstadt was the next in line to fill the No. 2 center position behind Nathan MacKinnon.

The trade looked like a home run for the Avs. Mittelstadt fit in with the team immediately. He and MacKinnon quickly became practice buddies, as he tried to soak up everything he could from one of the best centers in the world. They’re both hockey nerds at heart, and it looked like a good match.

Mittelstadt was productive at the end of the 2023-24 season and had a strong showing in his first Stanley Cup Playoffs. The Avs signed him to a three-year contract at $5.75 million per season. Then, he got off to a hot start last year when the depleted club needed him.

Then … it just went sideways for him.

“I don’t know,” Avs coach Jared Bednar said when asked what went wrong. “… It����ap different for every player and how he feels in the environment. Some guys thrive in it, some guys don’t. You can hit a streak. You lose confidence, and things don’t go well. There’s high expectations and moves are made. Other guys gain confidence and play well. Every team’s not going to be a fit for every player.”

From the day after the trade until mid-November of last season, Mittelstadt had 37 points in 48 games, including nine in 11 playoff contests. That’s a 63-point pace over a full season — exactly what the Avs have been looking for in that role.

Then he had four goals and 16 points in his next 44 games. The next game after that came with the Bruins, when he was traded, along with prospect William Zellers and a second-round pick, for Charlie Coyle. That the Avs had to include two assets to acquire a less-productive center suggests that Mittelstadt’s stock had plummeted.

“I think especially in the season when you’re playing every other day and things are crazy, it almost feels like it’s something different every game when it’s not going well,” Mittelstadt said. “Sadly, I think I probably fell into that rabbit hole a little bit too much.

“It’s part of it, though. It’s part of growing up and maturing and learning from your mistakes. I think as long as you do that, you look back on every experience as a positive one.”

Mittelstadt is already on his second coach with the Bruins, something he has experience with after spending the first six seasons of his career in Buffalo. He’s centering the second line for a franchise in transition. The spine of a potentially great team is still there with David Pastrnak, Charlie McAvoy and Jeremy Swayman, but the rest of the roster is a bit of an odd collection of players.

He’ll have a local kid, Littleton’s Michael Eyssimont, on his wing Saturday night in Denver. Mittelstadt has two goals and no assists in five games this season, and six goals but just two assists in 23 games overall for the Bruins.

“It����ap been fun. Obviously, a crazy couple of years,” Mittelstadt said. “Trying to get settled in and get comfortable. It����ap a great group of guys, so I’ve been having a good time. I think we’ve played overall pretty well and some things to improve on. I think we have a good team.”

Mittelstadt was a phenom growing up in Minnesota. He struggled at first with the Sabres but eventually matured into one of their best players and a productive NHL player.

He and the Avs looked like a great fit until it suddenly wasn’t. In a whirlwind year for the organization, his slump was one of the more perplexing developments. Other players have not worked out in Denver, but he was a unique case. He fit with the culture of the team, but it just went awry on the ice.

Now he’s trying to find the magic he had near the end of his time in Buffalo, while sorting out life in a new city.

“I think it’s a work in progress a little bit, trying to regain some of the confidence, and some of the things maybe I’d lost in the past couple of years,” Mittelstadt said. “At the same time, I think there’s a lot of positives and a lot of things going in the right direction.

“I learned so much in Colorado. I’m very grateful for my time there, and I feel like the staff taught me a ton, along with a lot of the players. I feel blessed to have that opportunity, but also happy to be here.”

Nelson could have been the top center available when the free-agent market opened July 1. Given that the salary cap ceiling increased more than in the past five years combined, with more big jumps coming in the next two offseasons, there might have been a chance to set off a bidding war for his services.

Instead, the 33-year-old made his decision well in advance of that, signing a three-year, $22.5 million contract June 4 with the Avalanche.

“I feel like, depending upon the day (and) where your mind would go, it’d be a lie if you said you didn’t think of a lot of different situations,” Nelson said Monday ahead of the Avs’ annual charity golf event at Castle Pines. “This feels like a special group in a special place.

“I loved my time here in the spring. Obviously, would have liked to have gone a little bit further. I saw the potential, what the group is capable of. All of that factored into the decision to come back.”

Getting Nelson signed was the biggest piece of offseason business for the Avalanche. The franchise has cycled through No. 2 centers since losing Nazem Kadri after winning the Stanley Cup in 2022. Casey Mittelstadt looked like a potential long-term option after the 2024 Stanley Cup Playoffs, but a lengthy funk last year led to him ending up in Boston and Nelson’s arrival from the New York Islanders.

Nelson had only played for the Islanders to that point in his career, but his time in Denver at the end of the last season helped convince him to make it an extended stay. Keeping him was a critical part of keeping Colorado among the clubs that can compete for the Stanley Cup in 2025-26.

“There’s not a lot of (quality) 2Cs, and then there’s not a lot of 2Cs that hit the market. We knew that,” Avs general manager Chris MacFarland said in July. “The ones that do are usually expensive, and to trade for them is not easy.

“(Nelson is) a smart defensive centerman. He’s long. I think we’re going to use him a bit more in the special teams roles now that he’ll have a full training camp. Brock is a proven player at this level. He takes good care of himself, and he fit in.”

Nelson arrived at the Avs’ golf event with Devon Toews, a longtime friend and former teammate with the Islanders. Toews didn’t hide that he had been in Nelson’s ear about potentially joining the Avalanche earlier in the 2024-25 season. Nelson admitted that he spoke with Toews and a few other Avs players quite a bit before making the decision to come back.

The lanky, smooth-skating center has also worked out in previous offseasons with Nathan MacKinnon, another vital member of Colorado’s leadership group who wholeheartedly endorsed Nelson’s arrival and the idea of keeping him.

After Nelson determined Denver is home for the next three seasons, his family moved here in early August so that his kids could get settled with school. Nelson is happy to have the chaos of family life back, after what he called some long, lonely days near the end of last season.

While Nelson will be critical to the Avs’ plans this coming season, he also has some experience that may have been of some interest ahead of training camp to his teammates. Nelson played for new Avs assistant coach Dave Hakstol at North Dakota when the latter was a longtime successful leader of that NCAA program.

“He was great. He was a solid presence, an intimidating guy, a detailed guy,” Nelson said. “Doesn’t let anything kind of get by him in terms of preparation and game plans. An intense guy, so he was one of those guys … you looked up to him as a little bit of like a mentor. You were afraid in a way, and you wanted to play your best for him, because he found a way to kind of get the best out of everybody and manage every personality.

“So to have him again, it’ll be fun to kind of see him and connect with him again. And I know his drive to win it is as high as he gets.”

The Avs made their second big move of the offseason Friday, trading Charlie Coyle and Miles Wood to the Columbus Blue Jackets. It’s a move that weakens the team’s present depth at forward, but also allows the club more flexibility to fill out the edges of the roster.

Colorado received the No. 77 pick in the 2025 NHL draft, a second-round selection in 2027 and prospect Gavin Brindley in the trade, which also clears $7.75 million in salary cap for this coming season.

“We believed in (the 2024-25) group tremendously, and it still stings,” Avs general manager Chris MacFarland said. “Our cap was tight, right? It’s still tight for this year, and this was an opportunity to loosen it up a little bit. We’re really excited about that aspect of it, and obviously it comes at the expense of losing good hockey players and good people.”

By removing Coyle and Wood from the cap ledger, the Avalanche now has $9.725 million in space with 10 forwards, four defensemen and two goaltenders signed to one-way contracts. One of those forwards, Logan O’Connor, is expected to miss the start of the season after hip surgery, so Colorado could have an extra $2.5 million in space available until he’s ready to return.

A fifth defenseman, Sam Malinski, will still be under team control if he doesn’t have a new contract by July 1 and becomes a restricted free agent. MacFarland said the club will qualify Malinski in the coming days and hopes to get a deal done with him soon.

Brindley was the No. 34 selection in the 2023 NHL draft and instantly becomes one of the Avs’ top prospects, albeit in a thin system. He had six goals and 17 points in 52 games in the AHL last season, but the 20-year-old wing was one of the youngest players in the league.

He had 25 goals and 53 points in 40 games as a sophomore at Michigan the previous year.

“Going back to his draft year, he’s a high-motor, tenacious player that plays with really good pace,” MacFarland said. “That book has traveled and just followed him to pro hockey.”

The 2025 third-round pick gives the Avs three selections in this week’s draft, along with fourth- and seventh-round picks. Both of the draft picks in this deal could become valuable trade chips, whether Colorado makes those selections or deals them ahead of time.

Colorado traded for Coyle just before the trade deadline last season in a deal that sent Casey Mittelstadt, prospect William Zellers and a 2025 second-round pick to the Boston Bruins. Coyle slotted in as the club’s No. 3 center for the stretch run and opening-round playoff series loss to the Dallas Stars.

When the Avs signed Nelson to a three-year, $22.5 million contract earlier this month, it left the team with little cap space and several depth spots on the roster still to fill. Coyle will cost $5.25 million against the cap in 2025-26, the final year of his current contract.

Coyle was an instant fit with the Avs. He had 13 points in 19 regular-season games, and coach Jared Bednar raved about his all-around game and versatility. But Coyle was also one of several key forwards who did not produce offensively against the Stars. He had one goal and no assists in the series.

The Avs signed Wood to a six-year contract with an average annual value of $2.5 million ahead of the 2023-24 season. Wood had four goals and eight points in 37 regular-season games this past season, missing a huge chunk of it with a lingering back injury. He appeared in only one playoff game after Colorado bolstered the forward group at the deadline.

Colorado still has Jack Drury, Parker Kelly, Ross Colton and Ivan Ivan as potential options to fill out the center depth chart behind Nathan MacKinnon and Nelson. Drury was the No. 4 center after Nelson and Coyle arrived at the deadline.

MacFarland also mentioned Zakhar Bardakov, a 24-year-old prospect the Avs acquired in March 2024 from the New Jersey Devils, as a player who could earn a job during training camp.

“We know what we’ve got in terms of cap space and roster holes. You do the math and try to figure it out,” MacFarland said. “We’ll look at anything we can to improve, including the back end. I think the only area that we’re probably set as we sit here tonight is in net.”

The Avs made a significant commitment ahead of offseason shopping season, retaining center Brock Nelson on a three-year contract with an annual $7.5 million cap hit. The move gives the Avalanche the most stability it’s had at a key spot in the depth chart in years. But that doesn’t mean the deal doesn’t also come with some risk.

First, the stability. Colorado’s quest to find a consistent No. 2 center to deploy behind Nathan MacKinnon has been one of the defining roster storylines of the past three seasons. General manager Chris MacFarland and his staff have done some strong work to keep the Avalanche among the league’s Stanley Cup contenders despite losing Nazem Kadri to Calgary, captain Gabe Landeskog to a defective right knee and several depth players from the 2022 run to one of the NHL’s universal truths — secondary guys who win the Cup get paid, typically elsewhere.

That said, how the Avs have navigated replacing Kadri has had some hiccups along the way. Ryan Johansen was a miss and cost Colorado an upgraded draft pick to include him in the trade for Sean Walker at the 2024 trade deadline.

The Avs used another premium asset, defenseman Bo Byram, to replace him with Casey Mittelstadt. He looked like a solid long-term solution and earned a three-year contract after a nice end to the regular season and a solid playoff run.

Then Mittelstadt went into a huge funk this past season, and the Avs had to trade a second-round pick and a decent prospect to swap him for Charlie Coyle, who had far less production and slots in as the third center. And then there’s the price Colorado paid for Nelson, which was significant.

The end result is Nelson for the next three years on a market-rate contract. Eight centers will be 31 or older next season with a salary cap hit that starts at $6 million to $7 million. Nelson was more productive last season than five of the other seven (one of the two who had better numbers was Kadri).

The process from Kadri to Nelson might cost the asset-thin Avs in a future trade, but they have a productive veteran who can excel in this role. Assuming Landeskog can stay healthy and Valeri Nichushkin’s off-ice troubles are far in the rear-view mirror, the Avs could have the best top-six in the NHL next year.

Now, about the risk.

First, there is Nelson’s age. He turns 34 years old in October. There is plenty of age-curve-related data out there. We know that players at this stage of their career are in some level of decline. The best ones minimize it, but even guys like Sidney Crosby and Jaromir Jagr weren’t quite as good at 34, 35 and 36 as they were earlier in their careers.

The Athletic’s Dom Luszczyszyn had a right after the signing that didn’t inspire confidence. There’s also another player who will be 34 next season who’s been in the news this past week. New York Rangers forward Chris Kreider also just had his best seasons at age 30, 31 and 32, but his age-33 year was a precipitous fall from grace and he now plays for Anaheim because of it.

There are a few reasons to believe Nelson is a guy who can mitigate some of the age-related decline. He just had the three best seasons of his career at ages 30, 31 and 32. Last year, his age-33 season, was his fourth-best in total production.

It also seems reasonable that more players are going to soften the landing at the end of their careers thanks to modern fitness and recovery regimens. Nelson has trained with some of MacKinnon’s people in recent offseasons, and now he’s going to have year-round, VIP access.

There’s also the surrounding context. No disrespect to the Islanders, but skating alongside two of Artturi Lehkonen, Martin Necas, Nichushkin or a healthy Landeskog could be one of the best lines he’s ever played on. And he’s never had a player like MacKinnon to absorb the attention of an opposing team’s top defensive players. Or a player like Cale Makar to get him the puck in open ice.

The Avs have to expect some attrition from Nelson’s overall game in the coming seasons, but he might be able to keep it to a minimum.

There’s also some risk in what the Avalanche gave up to get Nelson. The contract and the trade aren’t part of the same transaction, but had Nelson signed with another team next month, giving up Calum Ritchie and a future first-round pick for 26 games of the veteran center had the potential to be one of the worst trades in franchise history.

Moving forward? It can be a win-win for both sides. Ritchie was the club’s top prospect, but players of his pedigree don’t often have a slight dip in production in their post-draft seasons or end up as the fourth-most productive forward on a CHL team during an extended playoff run.

Ritchie did. Whether or not he could become the Avs’ No. 2 center in the next season or three was not a certainty.

What happens next with Ritchie or the likely 2026 first-round pick isn’t of the Avs’ concern, but the club is likely to hear less external noise about it if Nelson has a healthy, productive few years in Denver. Nelson gives the Avs a better chance to win the Stanley Cup in 2026 than Ritchie would have. Likely in 2027 and maybe 2028, as well.

It’s not a slam-dunk, team-friendly deal, but bringing Nelson back on this contract offers stability the club craved at a key spot and there’s sound logic behind the decision.

The Avs and Nuggets continue to stretch the elasticity of loyalty, determined to run it back with rosters that fell short this spring. This point was driven home Wednesday as the Avs re-signed free agent Brock Nelson to a three-year, $22.5 million deal.

The move means the Avs will feature their best opening day roster since 2022, their last championship season. And it puts general manager Chris MacFarland and coach Jared Bednar on notice.

Colorado deserves praise for taking big swings. But there are no consolation prizes for shots off the post. Another early playoff exit must come with consequences. And a slow start — say 9-15-1 — has to spell the end for Bednar, regardless of how well he is respected or his resume.

The Avs are where the Nuggets were. And we all know how that ended for Calvin Booth and Michael Malone.

They believe they have a Stanley Cup-worthy team. If this fails, everything not bolted to the floor — Nathan MacKinnon, Cale Makar, Gabe Landeskog, Val Nichushkin and MacKenzie Blackwood — must be slapped with a price tag.

President Joe Sakic made it clear last month that he wanted to keep the main pieces in place. Nelson was always part of the plan. At first glance, this seems like an overpay.

Some of us are old enough to remember when Nazem Kadri was deemed too expensive at $7 million per season.

The Nelson move, however, makes sense with context. The Avs’ most pressing need is a second-line center. Is Nelson worth $7.5 million? No. But the alternative was even more unsettling: filling the position with spare parts before making a desperate trade at the deadline, a strategy that has not worked the past few years.

Players who could have slipped into the 2C role — Calum Ritchie and Casey Mittelstadt — were shipped off last season. And did you really want Charlie Coyle in that spot?

Nelson was the second-best free-agent option behind Florida’s Sam Bennett. He had leverage with Minnesota expected to offer big dollars to bring him home. And what’s considered market value is rapidly changing with the salary cap increasing over the next three years.

It is OK to not like the deal. But like the fit.

A second line of Landeskog, Nichushkin and Nelson is ridiculous if the players are healthy and available. It is the type of depth that can win another ring.

But in keeping Nelson, MacFarland penalty boxed himself into a corner. The Avs will likely need to buy out Miles Wood and deal Ross Colton when his full no-trade clause becomes limited on July 1. They have limited assets. There will be no repeat of the 2024 in-season roster upheaval.

This is it. And for MacFarland, the onus is on Martin Necas to produce. He is eligible for a new deal this summer, and could ask for $10 million-plus if he reaches 100 points playing alongside MacKinnon after next season.

There has been speculation the Avs will attempt to trade Necas, that he might be unhappy in Colorado. But lest we forget, he was the centerpiece of the Mikko Rantanen deal. Moving him means trying to get a similar haul all over again. That would put yolk on MacFarland’s face that is already smeared with a Denver omelette after Mikko’s postseason performance.

The Avs and Nuggets are similar, but not identical.

The Nuggets’ belief that they are close to usurping the Thunder and Timberwolves is delusional without change.

The Avs are better off. They held a two-goal lead over the Stars with 13 minutes remaining in Game 7, and would have likely been favored, or close to it, in all remaining matchups.

But Dallas’ Pete DeBoer outcoached Bednar. And that cannot be dismissed when the Avs begin 2025-26 as one of six teams with a realistic shot of winning a championship.

Nelson’s return is evidence that the Avs’ posture hasn’t changed. They are all in.

Life is about moments. And this just doesn’t feel right. The Avs had their best chance in 2023 and 2024 before Nichushkin vanished. Now they are like the couple that forgot to take the heart hands photo in front of the Eiffel Tower. When they returned to recreate it, the vibe was off.

It����ap the same picture. But it is different. The Avs insist it is not. That is why Nelson is back. So, the challenge is clear after three straight disappointing summers: Prove it.

Colorado needed to get deeper. The Avs were not good enough or deep enough to win the Stanley Cup this year at the time of the trade. Negotiations with Rantanen and his agent didn’t yield a new contract that the Avs felt would allow them to be deep enough in the future.

“We felt we had a decision to make,” Avs president Joe Sakic said Tuesday. “We weren’t good enough. We weren’t deep enough.

“We felt we had to get deeper, and not only for this season’s team, but moving forward. Just paying three high-end guys and not having the surrounding cast wasn’t going to get it done.”

So off he went, to the Carolina Hurricanes in a three-team blockbuster that netted Martin Necas, Jack Drury, a 2025 second-round pick and a 2026 fourth-round pick.

But what if there is an alternate universe out there where the Avs kept Rantanen for the rest of this season? Could the Avalanche have gotten deeper between Jan. 24 and the trade deadline, but still had one of the great playoff performers in NHL history on its side?

The answer, with some caveats, is yes.

The first obvious caveat is that there will be some sentences during this exercise where it feels like hindsight is doing some work. We’re going to try and limit that as much as possible.

The second obvious caveat about this exercise is that no decision is made in a vacuum. Every trade, win, loss, injury, etc., changes the future, so there’s no way to just say “don’t do the Rantanen trade, but do the rest” in real life.

Had Colorado not traded Rantanen on Jan. 24, would the Avs have waited until March 1 to make their first of four trades before the deadline to shore up their depth? Maybe not.

That said, if we do just remove the Rantanen trade from the ledger, the Avs did have enough long-term injury reserve cap relief to make all of the other deals work.

When the Avs traded Rantanen to Carolina, it gave them some cap flexibility. But only a little for this season. The bigger savings come next year and then potentially in future years after that, depending on what Necas signs for (he has one year left at $6.5 million) or what Colorado would get back in a trade for him.

Use one of the salary cap website roster-building tools and reconstruct the Avs with Rantanen and without Necas/Drury. It works … with Keaton Middleton sent to the minors to make room for Erik Johnson.

It would have left Colorado with about $645,000 in space. And Parker Kelly would be the No. 4 center, not Drury. The Kelly-Drury-Logan O’Connor line never happens, but the Avs’ first two lines for Game 4 could have read Lehkonen-MacKinnon-Rantanen and Landeskog-Nelson-Nichushkin.

Given the sequence of events, the Avs would have had about $1.6 million to play with after the trade for Charlie Coyle and before the Johnson trade. So there would have been a little time to pursue another center instead of Johnson. Or they could have even gotten more ruthless and put Jimmy Vesey on waivers the day before, freeing up another $800,000 to possibly add Johnson ���Ի���another No. 4 center on deadline day.

Here’s where a little hindsight shows up. The Avs only had Vesey for a few days at that point. Both he and Johnson were added because the club expected a long run, and they might have been needed later on. Especially Vesey, because Gabe Landeskog still felt miles away from playing the first week of March.

The third big caveat in this exercise: What about the extra assets they got from Carolina?

This is where things get a little fuzzy.

Colorado still has the 2026 fourth-round pick, but that 2025 second-rounder from the Hurricanes went to Boston in the Coyle deal. Now, there’s a pretty fair argument that the Avs gave up too much for Coyle.

If this team went on a deep run or even won the Cup, that wouldn’t have mattered to anyone. Flags fly forever. But, a second-round pick and a solid prospect (William Zellers) — not to mention a more productive player (Casey Mittelstadt) — was a lot.

What could the Avs have added to the trade instead of a 2025 second to entice the Bruins? Would a 2027 second (Colorado had already moved its 2026 second) have still gotten a deal done? Maybe that and a slightly better prospect than Zellers … though the Avs are pretty short in that department as well.

Avalanche GM Chris MacFarland has also said on multiple occasions that the Rantanen trade gave his club “more ammo.” This is even further into the weeds, but would the Avs’ front office have felt confident enough to make all of those moves without having that valuable second-round pick in the war chest?

Let’s say the Avs do figure out the Coyle deal. Are they better with Rantanen and Kelly at 4C, plus all the other upgrades? Rantanen doesn’t light them up in the first round, at least.

Let’s say they can’t make the Coyle deal without that 2025 second. Would the Avs have been better in the playoffs with Rantanen, Mittelstadt and a different 4C instead of Necas, Coyle and Drury? Mittelstadt was lost in the woods before the trade, but he also played well for the Avs in the 2024 playoffs.

Going beyond this season is an exercise for another day. Would the Avs and Rantanen’s camp have eventually found common ground, even if it didn’t happen until late in the process? Maybe.

Would the Avs have been better in this postseason with No. 96 in burgundy and blue? Hard to argue against it, given that Rantanen woke up Thursday morning as the leading candidate for the Conn Smythe Trophy.

It would have been tricky to keep him and still make the other upgrades. Maybe it’s the Lindgren-Vesey trade that doesn’t work, and a different No. 4/5 defenseman ends up on the roster.

But it might have worked. Maybe somewhere out there in the multiverse, it actually did, and that Avalanche team is still playing.

The Avs were Stanley Cup contenders when they woke up Saturday morning. The season was over before they went to sleep. And it all came crashing down stunningly with a Game 7 collapse at the hands of Mikko Rantanen and the Dallas Stars.

“It hurts right now. This one stings,” Sakic said Tuesday at Colorado’s end-of-season press conference. “I’m not going to lie to you. You go into the playoffs … every year you want to win the Stanley Cup, but there’s those years that you feel like this is — like 2022 — we knew we had the team to do it. We feel like this year’s team was on that level, so that’s why this one’s going to sting. It’s going to sting a little longer than other years.”

Sakic and general manager Chris MacFarland addressed reporters three days after the club’s season ended in Dallas. There was no question about the club’s intent to compete for a title this season.

MacFarland and Sakic overhauled the roster with a flurry of in-season trades. Future draft capital and top prospects were jettisoned to build a $100 million war machine. The Avs looked like a team capable of winning 16 playoff games after the trade deadline, but the run ended three rounds too early.

“We just didn’t get it done,” MacFarland said. “We had three period three leads with 12 minutes to go. Some crucial times where we had to come through, whether it was on the special teams or whatever, to step on their throat early in the series, and we didn’t do it.”

There will be one notable change for next season. There could be others, but it will also be a long offseason as the Avs try to work out what went wrong, how to address needs and how to rebound for another run in 2026.

Here are the top takeaways from what Sakic and MacFarland had to say:

Assistant coach Ray Bennett fired

The Avs dismissed Bennett Tuesday morning, shortly before the press conference. Bennett has been with the Avs for the past eight seasons, joining Jared Bednar and Nolan Pratt after their first year. The Avs had the third-best power play over his eight seasons with the club.

Colorado had the best power play in the NHL from the day after Rantanen was traded to Carolina to the end of the regular season. But the Avs power play failed against the Stars, going 3 for 24 and not scoring at several key points that would have swung the series in Colorado’s favor.

“When you look at how we lost, we just feel maybe a different voice could help,” Sakic said. “It just ran dry at the wrong time. It’s tough to make a change. You don’t like to do that.”

Analysis: When Nathan MacKinnon used the phrase “bad adjustments” in the moments after Game 7, the writing was on the wall. Dallas is a great penalty-killing team, but Colorado just couldn’t find a way to be consistently dangerous, let alone score. MacKinnon had all three goals. Valeri Nichushkin and Gabe Landeskog — two of the best net-front players in the world — spent almost no time near Oettinger. How the pieces fit without Rantanen to hammer one-timers from the left flank remains a question to be answered.

Jared Bednar is coming back

No other changes to the coaching staff or in hockey operations are expected, according to the Avs’ decision-makers. Bednar, the second-most tenured coach in the NHL and the winningest in franchise history, will return.

“One hundred percent confident Jared is our head coach,” MacFarland said.

Analysis: Removing Bednar would have been change for the sake of change. There are seven other teams right now without a permanent head coach, and there are few options available as accomplished as Bednar or who would have the gravitas needed for a veteran, Cup-contending club. That said, there will be even more scrutiny on Bednar and this team to advance deep into the playoffs next season, and the roster might not be as strong.

What about Brock Nelson?

The Avs would like to bring free agent Brock Nelson back. Colorado spent a ton to add Nelson, who will be 34 years old in October. The two best long-term candidates to be the No. 2 center behind MacKinnon — Casey Mittelstadt and Calum Ritchie — were both traded. The pickings on the free-agent market, after Nelson and John Tavares, are slim.

“Brock’s a known quantity in this league,” MacFarland said. “We’ll continue to do our exit (interviews) and our work. One of those is meet with Brock and find out how he felt fitting in. We’ll attack the offseason negotiations in due time and make those hard decisions.”

Analysis: This is the decision that defines the offseason. Nelson had some pretty quiet nights after the trade, but he also played quite well in the final four games of the Dallas series. If it’s not Nelson, can they find someone else in a trade? If not, it could be Charlie Coyle to start the year and another deadline of shopping around one.

No Rantanen regrets

Sakic and MacFarland fielded multiple questions about the Rantanen trade and any potential reflections in hindsight. Neither man expressed regret.

“What’s done is done. That happened. We move forward,” Sakic said. “We were very confident with the group we have here. … It was a lot deeper, a lot stronger than it was to start the year or at Christmas time.”

Analysis: Part of the reason Sakic spoke in a news conference setting for the first time in years was to field questions about the Rantanen trade. The Avs knew it was going to be a big topic. He and MacFarland were direct about it. Sakic said Rantanen’s agents “knew where they were before the trade.”

Translation: Sakic hasn’t enjoyed some of the post-trade coverage about what Rantanen’s camp might have been willing to sign for at some point later in the negotiation.

Landy is here to stay

The Avs hope that Gabe Landeskog is back for good. The team and the captain were both on board with him waiting until Game 3 to return. Landeskog is not expected to join Sweden for the world championships, even though it’s taking place in his hometown (Stockholm). Still, there is optimism about what the rest of Landeskog’s career looks like now.

“Nobody knew if he would be able to come back, not even himself,” Sakic said. “To come back the way he did, it was pretty inspiring. Knowing another full summer of training, we’re very fortunate that he showed how he showed, how well he played, and we’re excited to have him come back to start the season with the group. A big plus for us.”

Analysis: The Avs have more certainty about key players on the roster than they’ve had in three years. A “back to normal” Landeskog, combined with a healthy Valeri Nichushkin and Artturi Lehkonen, should make the start of next season very different than this past one.

There’s no reset coming

The Avs have pushed a lot of chips into the middle, but they’re not slowing down or taking a step back.

“Listen, when you’ve got Cale Makar and Nathan MacKinnon, your window is open,” Sakic said. “You’re not going to have those players forever. So when you have them, you try and surround them with as good a players as you can and give them that opportunity to do what they do best.”

He went and found his notes from an Avalanche game early in the 2024-25 season to compare. Then it hit him.

“It’s like they’re from a different season,” Ferraro told The Denver Post. “This isn’t even close to the same team. I think it’s really quite incredible what they’re attempting to do here.”

The Avalanche, for the eighth consecutive season, qualified for the Stanley Cup Playoffs this spring. This team believes it can win the Stanley Cup, just as it did in 2022. That has been the expectation for this group for years now.

But how the Avs got here is unlike anything this franchise has seen. And there’s an argument that it’s unlike any season any club that fancies itself as a title contender has ever had. The Avalanche used 49 players this season. A 50th dressed but didn’t play.

That’s a figure typically reserved for clubs competing for the No. 1 pick, not a championship. There were an incredible number of injuries, but general manager Chris MacFarland and his team also made a series of stunning in-season trades to completely reshape the roster.

What remains is a team that caught fire over the second half of the season and enters the playoffs as a legitimate contender.

“It����ap bold. There’s no question about it,” said E.J. Hradek, who will be part of NHL Network’s “NHL Tonight” crew during the playoffs. “They identified that they weren’t going to be good enough with the roster they had, the goaltenders they had. … A lot of teams don’t act in that manner.”

‘It wasn’t by design’

Colorado acquired 11 players, via eight in-season trades, who played at least one game for the club this season. That’s four more than any other team in the league, and the most in a single season since the franchise moved to Denver, per NHL Stats.

Three teams traded for seven players. None of those clubs is still playing. The Avs, who open a blockbuster first-round series Saturday night with the Dallas Stars at American Airlines Center, are not only still playing, but they also believe this remodeled roster can win 16 more games.

“It wasn’t by design,” MacFarland said. “We weren’t sitting there in October going, ‘You know, we’re going to have to change the goaltending,’ or anything like that. I think it’s just one of those years where things just sort of fell into that sort of track.

“Our guys, top to bottom, did a good job collecting points. Was it always easy? No. But they did a good job battling and making sure we were staying with the pack. The management team felt like we still have a good team here, and just if we can find a way to tweak it and get deeper, it would be a really good hockey team.”

The start of this season felt calamitous. The Avs lost their first four games. Injuries mounted. The underlying numbers were solid, but both goaltenders were scuffling, and the club was dead last in save percentage.

That’s where the wholesale reconstruction started — in net. The Avs traded Justus Annunen to Nashville for Scott Wedgewood on Nov. 30, then made it a double swap by adding Mackenzie Blackwood in a multiplayer trade that shipped Alexandar Georgiev to San Jose.

No NHL team had ever traded both of its opening-night goaltenders before Christmas. Seventeen days and five starts later, the Avs signed Blackwood to a five-year contract extension.

“Aside from the fact that it wasn’t working with Georgiev, from what I understand, he’s kind of a headache to deal with. It was, again, bold to get out in front of it and take a chance on Mackenzie Blackwood,” Hradek said. “He’s a guy we saw in New Jersey with all of the ability in the world, but he was kind of immature. He’s kind of gotten things together, and he’s got a lot of talent. They took the chance and they signed him.”

Trading for Blackwood wasn’t the splashiest move of the eight. It didn’t cost the Avs the most or best assets. But it is hard to trade for a starting goaltender in the middle of a season.

And of all the players Colorado traded for, Blackwood was arguably the riskiest. He’s never started an NHL postseason game. His previous numbers were inconsistent, albeit with mostly lottery teams in front of him.

But he’s become one of the most consistent goalies in the NHL over the past four months. The Avs are sixth in save percentage since the day Wedgewood arrived on Dec. 1.

“I give full credit to our goaltending department with our analytics guys and our scouts. This was a guy we were very, very bullish on. We felt this was a guy whose game had another level to hit. I think (goaltending coach) Jussi Parkkila deserves some of the credit with the work on both guys,” MacFarland said.

“We feel like we’ve got goaltending as maybe the most solidified it’s been, certainly during my time working with Joe (Sakic). We feel good about that moving forward.”

‘It feels almost unprecedented’

The biggest trade shook the foundations of the franchise and sent shockwaves around the NHL. It also helped set more trades in motion.

Colorado’s players were enjoying an idyllic January evening in Boston when Mikko Rantanen walked down the hallway of the team hotel to find out from MacFarland that he had been traded to the Carolina Hurricanes. Franchises that are in the middle of a championship contention window do not trade the third-best player from a title-winning core in the prime of his career.

Rantanen was in the final year of his contract. The two sides had not found a solution for an extension. How the final days before the trade went down have been the source of much speculation and reporting.

Teams also do not trade players like Rantanen in the middle of a title contention window, then come out of it six weeks later with a roster that is clearly better on paper. But it would be hard to argue that’s not the case in Colorado.

“(Rantanen) is a great player, but one of the things that did was it gave us some chips we didn’t have before, and it gave us some cap space we didn’t have before,” MacFarland said. “We just felt that as long as our guys continued to do their thing, we would try to improve the team. The things we did, we feel it made sense.”

A couple of the other moves have looked like big wins for Colorado’s pro scouting department. The Avs added defenseman Ryan Lindgren, whose play away from Adam Fox in New York drew plenty of criticism. He is away from Fox in Denver, and he’s been a solid depth defenseman for the Avs.

Colorado effectively traded its slumping No. 2 center (Casey Mittelstadt) for a No. 3 guy (Charlie Coyle), but the latter has produced more like a No. 2 in recent weeks, and his coach, Jared Bednar, can’t say enough positive words about his impact.

Then there is the other trade that, in most years, would be the biggest a club might make. Colorado traded its No. 1 prospect, Calum Ritchie, as part of a hefty package of future assets to the New York Islanders for Brock Nelson, a pending UFA who is now the club’s No. 2 center.

The Avs have moved into the same neighborhood where Tampa Bay and Vegas reside — damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead. No draft picks in the first three rounds of the next two drafts? A cupboard nearly bereft of prospects with impact potential?

That’s something to worry about when there isn’t a championship to chase.

“They have (Nathan) MacKinnon, and they have (Cale) Makar, and they’re trying to win right now,” Hradek said. “The picture they’re looking at is we’ve got really high-end players in the prime of their career, and we have to try to win right now. And we have to try and keep this window open for as long as we can.”

So here are the Avs, on the eve of a titanic matchup with the Stars, the club that has knocked them out of the playoffs in two of the previous five seasons. It feels like there have been at least three versions of this team this season, and maybe four.

That doesn’t even take into account the final potential addition in a historic season of adversity and reconstruction: The Avs may have captain Gabe Landeskog in the lineup Saturday night for the first time since June 26, 2022.

Landeskog lifted the Stanley Cup that night. So much has changed in the three years since, but an incredible amount of change occurred in a 99-day span, from Nov. 30 to trade deadline day. Eight trades. Two new goalies. Three new centers. A potential Hall of Fame member sent away in his prime. A beloved player from the 2022 team, defenseman Erik Johnson, welcomed back.

It’s been a season unlike any other in Denver. But, just as Landeskog appears ready to return, the Avs hope all of the adversity and all of the moves lead them right back to where they were the last time the captain played.

“In one sense, it feels almost unprecedented with a team that was thought of to be a good team at the start of the year, to completely undo your goaltending and your center position in the midst of the season,” Ferraro said. “I don’t recall somebody making five changes to six possible spots.

“That to me seems incredibly bold, but also in a sense kind of ruthless. Like, ‘Look, we’ve got Makar and MacKinnon at the tops of their game and we’re just not good enough around them.’ It����ap one thing to acknowledge that, and then quite another to go do it and make the pieces fit.”

Trading places

The Colorado Avalanche roster has been completely overhauled since the team’s opening-night loss at the Vegas Golden Knights. Here’s a look at how the lineup changed from Game 1 of the regular season to Game 1 of the Stanley Cup playoffs.

Opening night

Projected playoff lineup

* Was injured during the game, missed 32 of the next 36 games