The Colorado Avalanche don’t have any reason to panic about the future of their core, but the organization may be setting itself up with a much deeper group of young players than it’s been known for in the past.
Nathan MacKinnon, Cale Makar, Gabriel Landeskog and Martin Necas anchor the top of the roster, and all of them are expected to be around for a while. That gives the Avalanche room to be patient with younger players, even if the season eventually forces a few of them into action when injuries hit.
That kind of opening already matters in preseason. Makar has missed time early because of an injury, though he was a full participant in practice on Tuesday and should appear in one of Colorado’s final two preseason games before the exhibition slate ends.
One of the more interesting young names is Taylor Makar, Cale’s brother, who has already seen plenty of ice time this preseason and scored in Monday night’s game. The younger Makar says he expects to have a role with the Avalanche at some point during the 2026-27 season, and he has a very specific area he wants to own.
Asked Taylor Makar about becoming a PK specialist, he’s gotten opportunity on the PK in Loveland and finished 1:27 SH TOI tonight:
“That's exactly what I want to be. I look up to Parker Kelly, O.C., guys like that, that just work so hard. That’s a huge part of the team come…
Colorado’s penalty kill was the best in the NHL last season at 84.6 percent, with the Chicago Blackhawks second at 83.6 percent. The first penalty-kill unit includes Logan O’Connor, Parker Kelly, Devon Toews and Brent Burns, while the second grouping features Brock Nelson, Artturi Lehkonen, Josh Manson and Cale Makar.
If Taylor Makar were to earn PK time as a forward, it would most likely come on that second unit, where he’d be filling in for someone like Nelson or Lehkonen. Even then, that kind of usage sounds like an emergency option more than anything else right now.
If he gets into the lineup, the most likely path is through a bottom-six injury. At this stage, he looks like a bottom-three forward, and he’d need to earn his way up before even thinking about third-line work.
Gavin Brindley is another young player worth tracking. He appeared in 56 games for the Avalanche last season and produced six goals and seven assists before finishing the year with the AHL Eagles after Colorado’s March 22 game against the Washington Capitals.
Brindley profiles as a fourth-line fill-in for now, though he could create a bigger role for himself during training camp competition. His size may stand out, but he still belongs in the conversation because he has already shown he can handle NHL minutes at some point.
Fedor Svechkov is another player with a chance to matter for Colorado’s future. The 23-year-old was a first-round pick of the Nashville Predators before the Avalanche acquired him in a trade that sent Jack Drury and Chase Bradley to a division opponent, with Zachary L’Heureux also heading to Colorado in the same deal.
Svechkov has 12 goals and 22 assists in 122 career NHL games. That isn’t the kind of production that jumps off the page for a former first-rounder, but the hope is that a new setting can bring out more from his game.
Discipline will also matter. He has averaged .295 penalty minutes per game, including 14 penalty minutes in 52 games in 2024-25 and 22 minutes in 70 games in 2025-26.
Then there’s T.J. Hughes, who signed with the Avalanche as a college free agent last season and played two games with the Eagles, finishing with a goal and an assist.
At Michigan, he piled up 69 goals and 110 assists in 156 games, and there’s a real belief that he has a legitimate shot to make the opening-night roster. In fact, he may have the best chance of the group.
Colorado’s established stars are still the story at the top of the roster, but the depth behind them looks a lot more promising than it once did. For a team that was recently viewed as having one of the worst pipelines in the NHL, that’s a meaningful shift.
In Other News...
Avalanche Suddenly Face A Bigger Problem Than The Score Against Winnipeg
The Avalanche spent most of the night in a familiar kind of trouble, chasing the puck in their own end and giving Winnipeg too many looks off defensive-zone mistakes. Even with a strong penalty kill keeping the damage from getting worse, Colorados five-on-five structure was the bigger issue, and the Jets made the Avs pay for the turnovers that kept extending shifts and tilting the ice the wrong way.
By the time Colorado headed into the third period down 2-0, the score was only part of the concern. The game had already turned choppy and physical, with penalties interrupting the rhythm, and the Avalanche needed a cleaner, calmer final frame just to give themselves a chance at a comeback. For a team that usually wants to dictate pace, the problem was less about chasing goals than finding a way to stop creating new ones against itself. [Read more 🡒]
Avalanche Face A Tough Final Roster Battle Before Opening Night
With opening night approaching, the Avalanche are facing the kind of roster trim every contender would rather avoid. Colorado has 32 players in camp and has to get down to 23 before the season begins, which means some useful depth pieces are going to be pushed into a difficult waiting game. Around the league, the first guesses often drift toward familiar names, and in this case Parker Kelly and Logan OConnor have come up in that conversation, along with Brent Burns, even if that last possibility feels far less likely given the role hes expected to play.
The harder part for the Avalanche is that the decision tree does not stop at the obvious veterans. Fabian Lysell and Domenick Fensore are among the players forcing the club to weigh present-day depth against longer-term value, and those calls can get messy fast once waivers enter the picture. Colorado still has time to sort it out, but the final round of camp is usually where a teams depth chart reveals more than anyone planned, and this one looks like it could be especially tight. [Read more 🡒]
Avalanche Preseason Loss Put A Few Early Roster Battles In Focus
The Avalanches preseason meeting with the Jets at Canada Life Center offered an early look at a roster that is still taking shape, even in a 3-1 loss. Colorado dressed only a limited number of players who are likely to be in the opening-night mix, which meant the game was as much about sorting out depth and roles as it was about the final score.
Winnipeg got goals from Gabriel Vilardi, Cole Perfetti and Dylan DeMelo, while Colorados offense came from Georgii Merkulov, with Brett Kulak and Fabian Lysell setting him up. For a team still weighing a few early roster battles, nights like this tend to matter less for the result than for the way individual players handle bigger minutes and a less settled lineup. [Read more 🡒]