Players are starting to trickle back into Denver, and the Avalanche are two weeks away from their first skate of the fall. Here are nine big questions facing the team as it looks to rebound from last season’s disappointing playoff exit:
Who claims the final forward spots?
Two forward spots are up for grabs, and that’s if everyone is healthy. Preseason injuries could lead to even more opportunities.
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Newcomers Fredrik Olofsson, Riley Tufte, Joel Kiviranta (professional tryout) and Peter Holland (professional tryout) will get looks, as will Ben Meyers, who played 39 games for the Avalanche in 2022-23. Additionally, there’s opportunity for young players like Oskar Olausson and Jean-Luc Foudy to have a good camp. If one of those two proved ready to contribute at the NHL level, it would be a huge boost for Colorado.
The Avalanche will also likely keep an eye on the waiver wire. The team claimed forwards each of the past two seasons, bringing in Dryden Hunt last year and Nicolas Aube-Kubel in 2021-22. Aube-Kubel suited up in playoff games for the Avalanche, so the front office has shown an ability to identify players who can contribute in important situations. That could be an option if an appealing player goes on waivers before the season starts or if Colorado needs forward help once the games actually begin.
There wasn’t a perfect, affordable candidate for Colorado’s second-line center position entering the offseason, so president of hockey operations Joe Sakic and general manager Chris MacFarland took a calculated risk by acquiring Ryan Johansen from Nashville. The Predators ate half of Johansen’s cap hit, so Colorado will be on the hook for $4 million each of the next two seasons rather than $8 million. If Johansen can operate as a strong 2C on a contending team, that’s a great deal.
Johansen brings reason for both optimism and questions. He has great hands and had a 26-goal, 63-point season in 2021-22. But that’s the only time he’s averaged more than 0.53 points per game in the past four seasons. He’s coming off an injury-riddled campaign that saw him put up 28 points in 55 games. He’s also not the fastest skater, which makes fit a question on a high-flying Avalanche roster.
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Colorado has struggled to win faceoffs at a high rate in recent years, and draws are one of Johansen’s specialties. Aside from his rookie season more than a decade ago, he’s been above 50 percent every year of his career. That could make him an intriguing option on the power play.
Coming out of the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League in 2013, Drouin had enough skill for Tampa Bay to pick him at No. 3. In his first five seasons, he appeared in a Stanley Cup Final and put up three 45-plus point seasons. But he’s had a trying past four seasons with Montreal, missing time with injuries and other health issues. At 28, he still has the skills that made him a top-three pick and productive player early in his career. Can Colorado help those shine through once again?
“Obviously there were a lot of ups and downs in my six years in Montreal, so I’m super excited to get a fresh start somewhere new,” Drouin said shortly after signing. “I’m hoping to help them any way I can and try to find my game again. I know it’s there. It’s just a matter of confidence.”
Drouin played with Nathan MacKinnon on the Halifax Mooseheads, and the two won a Memorial Cup together. MacKinnon spoke highly of Drouin to Colorado’s front office, and coach Jared Bednar could try playing them on the same line to rekindle old chemistry.
“Me and Nate were texting a lot, and I definitely had Colorado on my radar and was hoping we could find a deal,” Drouin said. “Got very lucky.”
If Drouin breaks out in Colorado, he could fill a hole in the top-six forward group. If he’s only a bottom-six player, that’s a fine outcome given his contract ($825,000 for one year), but it would mean the Avalanche need to find another forward capable of playing on the first or second line.
Does a long offseason leave players more energized?
Colorado won the Stanley Cup on June 26, 2022. The Avalanche were then back at training camp less than three months later. That’s not much time to recover from a grueling postseason run. This year, Colorado’s first official skate comes nearly five months after the Kraken ended the Avalanche season. That’s a lot more time to rest, and players’ bodies surely appreciate it, even if they’d have rather gone deeper in the postseason. Will that translate to better on-ice play to start the new season?
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Can unestablished players emerge at the NHL level, either at camp or during the season?
With a significant chunk of Colorado’s salary cap space going to its stars, the Avalanche could benefit greatly from young players on cheap contracts stepping up. I mentioned Foudy and Olausson earlier in this story, but Sam Malinski and Ondrej Pavel — though a bit older — fall into this category, too. Both were college free-agent signings this past spring and showed flashes of promise in the early going with the Eagles. Pavel is a strong forechecker whose path to the NHL is likely as a fourth-liner, and Malinski had 10 points in 14 Eagles games last season.
Nikolai Kovalenko is another name to keep an eye on. He won’t come to the U.S. until his KHL season ends, but he has shown promise playing in Russia’s top league. He could be an option for the Eagles or Avalanche later in the season.
Nichushkin is expected to be in training camp, but his return comes after a concerning end to his 2022-23 season. He missed the final five games of the Seattle series for personal reasons after a team physician encountered an intoxicated woman when checking on him ahead of Game 3. The winger was a key member of Colorado’s Stanley Cup run in 2022 but now will have to prove the team can rely on him after his abrupt departure.
Nichushkin hasn’t spoken to reporters since the playoffs, and the team expects him to once camp begins.
How does the front office use its remaining salary-cap space?
With Gabriel Landeskog on long-term injured reserve, Sakic and MacFarland have left themselves with a bit of cap flexibility. CapFriendly projects them to have $2 million to spend. Some of that could go to a PTO player who earns a contract. The team could also sign a remaining free agent like Phil Kessel, or could wait to add a player via trade.
How does Jared Bednar format his lines?
Bednar always has an interesting decision of whether or not to split up MacKinnon and Mikko Rantanen, but I’m most curious about how the third line ends up looking. The bottom six was a big weak spot for Colorado in the Seattle playoff series and was an area the front office tried to bolster this offseason. Ross Colton and Miles Wood seem like good fits there, but who joins them? What happens if one of them needs to play in the top six?
The coach will also have to decide who he can fit at center in the bottom six. Meyers is a candidate, and Bednar tried Andrew Cogliano up the middle, too. Olofsson and Tufte could also get looks at center.
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Is the team healthy?
Injuries hampered Colorado all of last season. It would be naive to blindly assume some won’t extend into training camp. Cale Makar recently mentioned having “some ailing things from last season that’s kind of lingered quite a bit longer than we wanted,” and Cogliano and Josh Manson are both coming off playoff-ending injuries. Foudy also had his 2022-23 season derailed because of health, as did newly acquired Johansen. Will they all be good to go come Day 1 of camp? Did injuries prevent them from doing any of their offseason training?
(Top photo of Valeri Nichushkin: Sergei Belski / USA Today)
