The Colorado Avalanche have no shortage of star power at the top of the roster. Nathan MacKinnon, Martin Necas and Gabriel Landeskog headline a group that can carry plenty of weight. But in 2026-27, the Avalanche are going to need a few lesser-known names to step forward and make themselves impossible to ignore.
Not every player is going to light it up. Some will end the season with 5-10 goals, some with only a couple, and some will spend most of the year with the Colorado Eagles.
That’s just how it goes. Still, there are a few players who could be called on quickly if the opportunity opens up, and three in particular stand out.
Nikita Prishchepov is the kind of player who keeps coming back into the conversation. He got his first NHL look in 2024-25 and played 10 games, and even without a point, he looked active and involved every time he was on the ice.
The problem has been availability. In 2024-25, he appeared in 51 games for the Eagles, and in 2025-26 he was limited to just 22 games, finishing with three goals and nine assists.
That kind of missed time is a real obstacle. The AHL schedule runs 72 games, which means Prishchepov missed 21 games in 2024-25 and 50 this past season.
If he can’t stay healthy, it’s hard to see him finding real footing at the NHL level. Being a seventh-round pick makes the climb even steeper, but there’s still enough there to think he can take another step if things finally break right.
Sean Behrens is in a similar spot, though his case looks different on the ice. The Avalanche took him in the second round in 2021, and he’s now 23 years old with only 56 AHL games under his belt. Fifty-five of those came in 2025-26, after he missed the entire 2024-25 season.
When he was on the ice last season, he produced. Behrens finished with five goals and 18 assists, which is solid output for a defenseman, and he added one goal and three assists in 15 AHL playoff games.
The challenge is obvious: too much time has already been lost. Staying healthy has to be the priority, because development gets murky fast when a player keeps disappearing from the lineup.
His timeline with the Avalanche feels like it could be tightening.
Then there’s Gavin Brindley, who already has NHL games on his résumé. He played 56 games for Colorado this past season and chipped in six goals and seven assists as a depth forward.
But his season faded down the stretch, and his last NHL appearance came in late March. After that, he logged only nine games with the Eagles and produced two goals and four assists.
Brindley’s path is less clear than the others. Maybe the Avalanche see him as an Eagles player for the long haul.
Maybe the departures of Ross Colton and Jack Drury create a chance for him to force his way into the picture. His size is a real drawback, but he still found ways to contribute.
The question now is whether he gets another shot to do it at the NHL level.
In Other News...
Avalanche Risk Repeating A Brutal Problem If They Get This Wrong
The Avalanche have mostly set their roster for the coming season, with only a few jobs still open on the fourth line and the bottom of the defense. Colorado also brought in depth help to round things out, adding Fyodor Svechkov, Zachary LHeureux, Vinnie Hinostroza and Noah Juulsen as the group behind the core starts to take shape.
For a team that wants to stay fresh over the long haul, the real challenge now is how the coaching staff handles those last spots once the games begin. If the veterans get too much of the burden and the younger players are left without meaningful NHL minutes, Colorado could end up repeating the same kind of wear-and-tear problems that have hurt them before, with the blue line and forward depth both needing to hold up when the season gets heavy. [Read more 🡒]
Avalanche Suddenly Face A Cap Squeeze They May Not Escape
Colorados cap picture is getting tighter in a hurry, and the next season on the books already comes with a built-in drag. The Avalanche are set to carry roughly $2.3 million in dead cap space into 2026-27, a hit that stems from bonus overages and will sit there before the roster is even finalized. With the clubs current structure leaving only about $404,000 in room once those overages are factored in, there is not much margin for error.
Brent Burns contract is the reason the accounting has turned so awkward, and the timing makes the squeeze even more uncomfortable for Colorado. The bonus overage mechanism pushed part of last seasons payments onto this years cap, and the new waiver rules only make roster management less flexible, since paper transactions are no longer the easy escape hatch they once were. If the Avalanche need to create space, the choices may not be pleasant. [Read more 🡒]