Joe Sakic made his offseason message clear after the Colorado Avalanche’s disappointing Western Conference Final exit: the roster needed to get younger. Back in the GM chair in June after Chris MacFarland departed for Nashville, Sakic followed through on that plan in a pretty direct way.
Colorado moved Jack Drury, Ross Colton and Valeri Nichushkin, then brought in draft capital along with two 23-year-old forwards, Zachary L’Heureux and Fedor Svechkov. The Avalanche also added another 23-year-old in Fabian Lysell, and Sakic pointed to 21-year-old Gavin Brindley, 24-year-old T.J. Hughes and 22-year-old Matthew DiMarsico as players to keep an eye on in training camp and beyond.
There are still veterans in the mix. Jaden Schwartz, 34, was signed to fill Nichushkin’s spot, and Noal Juulsen, 31, is set to be the Avs’ new No. 7 defenseman. But the overall direction is obvious: Colorado is trying to tilt away from the older end of the league’s age spectrum.
Even with that push, the Avalanche still sit near the top of the NHL’s oldest-roster list. Without counting Brindley or Hughes, Puck Pedia has Colorado with an average age of 30.6, which makes it the third-oldest team in the league.
Only the Florida Panthers, at 30.9, and the Los Angeles Kings, at 31.0, are older. Right behind Colorado are the Toronto Maple Leafs at 30.3, the Vegas Golden Knights and New York Islanders at 30.0, and the Tampa Bay Lightning at 29.8.
The rest of the top 10 includes the New Jersey Devils at 29.7, the Dallas Stars at 29.6 and the Stanley Cup champion Carolina Hurricanes at 29.6.
One other wrinkle stands out in that group: every one of the NHL’s most recent Stanley Cup champions is there. From 2020 through 2026, the Lightning, Avalanche, Golden Knights, Panthers and Hurricanes all won titles. Dallas, meanwhile, has reached the Final once in that span and added three other Western Conference Final trips.
In Other News...
Avalanche Pipeline Just Took Another Important Turn In Loveland
The Colorado Eagles summer reset has continued to reshape the Avalanches AHL pipeline in Loveland, with the affiliate adding another layer of forward depth and bringing in yet another new head coach. For an organization that leans on its farm team to keep the system stocked and the call-up options ready, the churn matters because it changes not just the roster, but the way the next wave of prospects will be developed and evaluated.
One of the more notable side notes around the hockey world came from Connor Bedard, who spoke with Chicago media about his contract extension and his recovery from injury. Elsewhere, Jack Campbell announced his retirement after a career that included a brief stop in Detroit, a reminder of how quickly the goalie landscape can change while teams like Colorado keep sorting out who fits where in the organizations future. [Read more 🡒]
Chris MacFarlands Martin Necas Move Looks Bigger For The Avalanche Now
Chris MacFarlands decision to lock in Martin Necas before the NHLs salary cap climbed looks even sharper now, because the timing of that extension gave the Avalanche a chance to get ahead of a market that was only going to get pricier. Necas rewarded that bet with a breakout season, finishing with 38 goals and 62 assists in 78 games and giving Colorado the kind of high-end production that can reshape a lineup.
For the Avalanche, the bigger picture is what the deal allowed them to do afterward. A later, more expensive contract would have tightened the screws on roster building, but this one left more room to add depth and keep the team flexible as MacFarlands tenure moved on. In a cap world where every million matters, that kind of foresight can end up being just as valuable as the player himself. [Read more 🡒]
Nathan MacKinnon Contract Change Will Catch Avalanche Fans Off Guard
Nathan MacKinnons contract is getting a tiny technical tweak starting in the 2026-27 season, one that stems from the NHLs new collective bargaining agreement and the way minimum salary rules now apply to the back end of long-term deals. The adjustment comes on a contract already built heavily around signing bonuses, with the Avalanche star carrying unusually low base salary in the early years and the bulk of his money paid out that way.
For Colorado, the practical effect is almost nothing. The added salary is spread across the remaining seasons of the deal, nudging his cap hit up by only a sliver and leaving the Avalanches bigger roster questions unchanged. Still, it is the kind of fine-print shift that can catch fans off guard when a superstars contract looks different on paper even though the on-ice and cap consequences remain negligible. [Read more 🡒]