Nathan MacKinnon’s monster season ended with the kind of playoff collapse Colorado Avalanche fans won’t forget anytime soon, but the bigger picture still tells a different story. The Avs are tied for the longest active postseason streak in the NHL at nine straight trips, and oddsmakers already expect that run to keep rolling into 2026-27.
That’s the strange split with Colorado right now: the pain of a brutal spring, and the reality that this is still one of the league’s most reliable playoff teams. Sportaza online sportsbook has the Avalanche at -1600 to make the postseason again next season, the shortest odds in the league by a wide margin.
The 2025-26 postseason began with all the hallmarks of a contender. Colorado had MacKinnon, who led the NHL with 53 goals and won the Rocket Richard Trophy.
The Avalanche also owned the Presidents’ Trophy after a regular season in which they scored 4.11 goals per game, best in the playoff field. They ripped through the first two rounds, sweeping the Kings and then taking out the Wild in five games to build an 8-1 combined record.
Then came Vegas, and the series quickly turned upside down. Mark Stone scored on a breakaway 4:42 into Game 1, and the Golden Knights won the opener 4-2. They followed that with a 3-1 win in Game 2 on home ice, then delivered the real dagger in Game 3, erasing a three-goal third-period deficit to win 5-3 after Colorado had led wire-to-wire until the final stretch.
By Game 4, the Avalanche had Cale Makar back from injury, but Valeri Nichushkin remained out with a lower-body issue, and Mackenzie Blackwood got the start over Scott Wedgewood. It still didn’t change the result.
Stone scored again, Cole Smith tipped in what became the series-clinching goal, and Carter Hart stopped 20 shots as Vegas closed out a 2-1 win. Gabriel Landeskog’s third-period goal cut the deficit to 2-1, but it came about ten minutes too late.
Colorado’s sweep at the hands of Vegas made ugly history, too. The Avalanche became just the second team in NHL history to win the Presidents’ Trophy and get swept in the same postseason.
Even with that ending, Colorado’s nine-year run of playoff appearances is tied for the longest active streak in the league. And the Avs aren’t alone at the top.
Tampa Bay also sits at nine straight postseason berths, though its recent history has been defined by a much different kind of whiplash. The Lightning won 62 games and the Presidents’ Trophy in 2018-19, only to be swept by Columbus in the first round.
That shock loss set the stage for two Cups in the bubble and a third straight Final in 2022. Since then, though, it’s been four straight first-round exits, including a seven-game loss to Montreal after Nikita Kucherov won the Hart Trophy and Andrei Vasilevskiy took the Vezina.
John Carlson and Ilya Mikheyev are now in the mix, while Nicholas Paul and Taylor Raddysh are gone.
Carolina sits right behind them with eight straight postseason appearances, and the Hurricanes are coming off a run that finally pushed them all the way through. After seven straight seasons of winning their opening series and then falling short deeper in the bracket, they swept Ottawa, swept Philadelphia, opened the postseason 8-0, beat Montreal 4-1 in the Conference Finals, and then outlasted Vegas in six.
Jordan Staal, at 37, became the oldest Conn Smythe winner ever, and Carolina captured its first title since 2006. Eric Tulsky kept the core together this summer, with Frederik Andersen the only major departure, and the Hurricanes enter the new season as the favorite to repeat.
Edmonton rounds out the list with seven straight postseason trips. The Oilers have been to the Final in each of the last two seasons, losing both times to Florida.
One of those runs included a rally from 3-0 down before they still dropped Game 7. This spring ended much earlier, with a first-round loss to Anaheim, and Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl both said the group had regressed.
The offseason brought more change. Kris Knoblauch is out, Mike Babcock is in after Vegas blocked Edmonton from even speaking with John Tortorella, Darnell Nurse is now in San Jose, and Andersen, fresh off a Cup, has joined the Oilers in goal. Whether that’s enough to push them back into true Cup contention is another question, but their streak is expected to reach eight seasons in a year’s time.
In Other News...
Cale Makar Just Gave Avalanche Fans A Huge Reason To Exhale
Cale Makar gave Avalanche fans a major dose of relief on a day when the focus could have easily stayed on his record-setting new deal. The defenseman signed an NHL-record eight-year, $163.2 million contract to remain in Colorado, a move that only underscored how central he is to the franchises future. Avalanche president Joe Sakic made it clear the team views Makar as indispensable, especially after his absence was felt in the Western Conference Final.
Makar also addressed the upper-body injury he suffered in the playoffs and sounded optimistic about the road ahead. He said he expects to be healthy and ready for training camp, which is exactly the kind of update Colorado wanted after waiting to see how he would recover. For a club that knows how much it missed him in the spring, the contract was a headline, but the health update may have been the bigger reason to breathe easier. [Read more 🡒]
Gavin Brindley Just Made Colorados Camp Battle A Lot More Interesting
Gavin Brindley arrived in Colorado with the sort of profile that can make a training camp feel a little less predictable. The 21-year-old forward, acquired from the Columbus Blue Jackets, already has 56 NHL games on his rsum from the 2025-26 season, and he managed to turn enough heads along the way to earn a two-year contract extension. For a player still trying to settle into the league, that kind of organizational commitment says plenty about how the Avalanche view his ceiling.
Brindley also showed he can keep contributing after setbacks, which is part of why his roster case is worth watching. After an injury sent him down to the AHL affiliate in Loveland, he still found a way to help in the playoffs, keeping himself in the conversation for a spot with the big club. With camp approaching, the question is less about whether he belongs in the picture and more about how quickly he can make the decision impossible to ignore. [Read more 🡒]
Avalanche Face A Lehkonen Contract Issue Fans Cant Ignore
Artturi Lehkonens place in the Avalanche lineup has been secure for a while, but his contract situation is starting to loom just as large as his on-ice value. Colorado president of hockey operations and general manager Joe Sakic said talks on a new deal could stretch into the regular season, a reminder that the winger is entering the final year of his five-year contract after becoming one of the teams most dependable two-way pieces since arriving in Colorado.
For the Avalanche, this is the kind of business decision that can linger because Lehkonen has mattered in every setting the team cares about. He has been a steady contributor in the regular season and a timely scorer in the postseason, including key goals during the 2022 Stanley Cup Playoffs. The longer this drags on, the more attention it figures to draw, even if both sides still have time to work through it. [Read more 🡒]