Mile High Hockey

We are getting closer to the reveal of the new alternate jersey the Avs will debut sometime soon.

Hometown Remix Teaser

Of course... the PP gives up one last shortie as a goodbye to Dave.Don't go away mad Dave... just go away

LADIES AND GENTLEMEN OF COLORADO AVALANCHE FANDOM... OUR NATIONAL NIGHTMARE IS OVER!!!!

A link for last season predictions so you can check my accuracy last year! <a rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" href="https://www.milehighhockey.com/post/HubTaqn3tgyT">https://www.milehighhockey.com/post/HubTaqn3tgyT</a>Regular season (Playoff teams bolded)Central:<ol><li>Colorado</li><li>Minnesota</li><li>Dallas</li><li>Utah</li><li>Chicago</li><li>Nashville</li><li>St. Louis</li><li>Winnipeg</li></ol>Top 3 of central continues to be top teams in league. Utah still solid team. Chicago start rising, as now they got a decent top player in every position with Knight, Byram and Bedard. Nashville might be heading into rebuild mode. St. Louis and Winnipeg fade out.Pacific:<ol><li>Vegas</li><li>Anaheim</li><li>San Jose</li><li>Edmonton</li><li>Seattle</li><li>Los Angeles</li><li>Calgary</li><li>Vancouver</li></ol>Vegas is a top team. Anaheim and San jose continuing their effective youth movements. Edmonton is not in a great place. Seattle is a sleeper, as they have some proper youth movement that could start to crank them up higher in the division. Maybe back to playoffs next season with a good summer? Los angeles top is getting old and there is not enough depth. Not a bad team, but not good enough. Calgary trying to join the San jose and Anaheim youth success in 1-3 years, they are doing fine at the bottom. And Vancouver hoping for a miracle to get better.Atlantic:<ol><li>Montreal</li><li>Florida</li><li>Buffalo</li><li>Tampa bay</li><li>Ottawa</li><li>Boston</li><li>Toronto</li><li>Detroit</li></ol>The deepest division. 1-4 all are high quality teams. Montreal and Buffalo should both have a long future at the top, Montreal especially will surely win cups with this core. Tampa and Florida has the window closing, but both still solid cup options. For Tampa it might be over soon before the looming rebuild. Ottawa is a solid team, but just can't make the step from good to great. Boston is... there? Awkward middle ground. Let's see if they can make a retool happen, or if it will be a full rebuild soon. Toronto seems to be falling apart, but there is a chance for them to get going again next season. All hope is not lost. Detroit could have been where Ottawa is, but somehow they decided to implode instead.Metropolitan:<ol><li>Carolina</li><li>New Jersey</li><li>Philadelphia</li><li>NY Islanders</li><li>Pittsburgh</li><li>Columbus</li><li>Washington</li><li>NY Rangers</li></ol>Forget Pacific, Metro is the worst division in the NHL. Carolina is a top team, proven by their cup. But after that? New Jersey should be a good team with potential for even more if they stay healthy. Philly has good things going for them and I expect them to make it. Then from 4 to 7 there might be painful mediocrity. Rangers keep imploding even more.Playoffs Bracket added as image. Hurts not choosing Avs. But after like 6 straight years of picking the Avs I had to do something else.AwardsI tried to go for sleeper picks and avoid the obvious.Art Ross: Jack hughesHart: Kirill KaprizovNorris: Rasmus DahlinRocket Richard: Cole CaulfieldPresidents: MontrealVezina: Jesper WallstedtCalder: Ivar Stenberg

My predictions for this season

Meghan Angley joins the Mile High Hockey Lab panel on Tuesdays!

The Avs are ranked #1 by the AthleticFrom the end of the article: <hr><h2>The best case: 124 points</h2>The Avalanche once again dominate the regular season, but this time they make it count with a playoff run that leaves no doubt regarding who the best team in the league is.<h2>The worst case: 94 points</h2>Kadri shows his age, Landeskog can’t stay healthy and the goaltending implodes. Colorado’s bottom-six tinkering doesn’t hold up and the Avalanche stumble into the wild card.<hr><h2>The bottom line</h2>The Avalanche’s age, bottom-six depth and goaltending situation provide valid reasons for skepticism, and last season’s flame-out can’t be ignored, but the cheat codes at the top of their lineup and quality depth elsewhere make them a worthy preseason favorite to win the Stanley Cup.

To no one's surprise:

Ezra Parter guests hosted our show yesterday and the whole crew crushed this episode! #GoAvsGo

Mile High Hockey Lab #155 is AVAILABLE NOW!!

There were interesting discussion regarding the age of the cup winners under a recent article. Are Avs too old to win? How old have the previous winners been?I compiled some stats to check this!I used data from hockey-reference.com. The stats there listed the age at first of February of the cup year. And the average is not just an average of the numbers. It is the average age weighted (WAA) by ice time. I still have strong dislike to the new editor... Can't add images or table mid article. But I'll work with what I can.I added two images of tables in the article. The one with a bunch of numbers is has five columns. The first column is the cup year, second is the Avs WAA of that year, third is the weighted average of the whole league, fourth is the WAA of the cup winning team and fifth is the difference of the WAA of the cup winner to the average. The most recent cup team that was not older than the average were the Avs at 2022. The most recent that was younger were the 2015 Kings. From the few recent years the oldest team were the 2025 Panthers at WAA of 29,6. Oldest team are the 2008 Red wings at WAA of 32,1. A clear outlier, but proving everything is possible. Average of League WAA from this span is 28,1 and for cup winners 28,5. The trend overall was moving towards older teams both in league overall and cup winners.Then there is a direct comparison of the Avs 2026 team and the 2026 winner, Carolina. It does show that Avs have used seven more players than the Canes. Overall the view is quite similar at the glimpse of an eye. With a bit more analysis the Canes have even more of their talented players above 30, while Avs are still stacked at late 20s with notables of Necas and Makar, but Canes have the benefit of having high end players even in yearly twenties like Blake and Stankoven. Both teams also happen to have a notably older player also in their team that did still play plenty of minutes.The third image added is a projected Avs 2026-27 opening night lineup. This was a hard list to make, as there's 13 forwards that should deserve the NHL time from day 1. The lineup has an average age of 31,1. That does seem a bit high, but got to remember that Avs have the oldest player in the league. With a set of only 20 players, one notable outlier can sway things. Just replace Burns with Gagne and we are at 30,3.In <a rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" href="https://Eliprospects.com">Eliteprospects.com</a> list of team average ages for this year the Avs sit tied at 3rd with Golden knights behind Kings and Panthers. Avs are at the older end of the league, but so are almost every team in the cup discussion. We can worry about this soon, but now there's nothing notable about Avs age. Thank you for reading!

Average age of each cup winner

Avalanche reveal training camp roster

I've been thinking about what Colorado could realistically offer Winnipeg for Connor Hellebuyck, and I keep coming back to this structure:Avalanche receive: Connor HellebuyckJets receive: Mackenzie Blackwood Josh Manson A significant prospect Additional draft capitalThe interesting part to me is that Colorado could offer Winnipeg something other teams may have a harder time matching: an NHL goalie and a veteran defenseman who can help immediately.If Winnipeg is moving Hellebuyck, Blackwood gives them an experienced NHL goalie rather than forcing them to immediately find another starter.Manson also seems like a potentially logical trade piece from Colorado's perspective. With Makar, Toews, Burns, Kulak and Malinski in the mix, Colorado has enough defensive depth that Manson may be one of the veteran contracts they could realistically move to upgrade the position that matters most.And if Colorado is serious about Hellebuyck, moving Blackwood makes even more sense. You don't want to acquire an elite starting goalie and then have a huge amount of money tied up in your backup.The obvious question is what else Winnipeg would need.Colorado doesn't have a simple 2027/2028 first-round pick sitting there to throw into this deal, so the package would have to be built around Blackwood + Manson + a quality prospect + whatever combination of available picks makes sense.I'm not saying this is enough. I'm wondering whether it's a better starting point than the usual "prospects and picks" Hellebuyck proposals.What would Winnipeg need on top of Blackwood + Manson to say yes?Would you give up a top Colorado prospect to make it happen, or is Hellebuyck simply too expensive an acquisition given Colorado's limited draft capital?

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