Here is a number that reads like a criticism and is actually the highest compliment on the roster: with Cale Makar on the ice at five-on-five, Colorado controlled 60 percent of the expected goals. With him on the bench, 54. A plus-six swing from a man with a real claim to being the best defenceman alive looks modest until you sit with the second number. Most teams would trade their season for a 54 percent share. The Avalanche post it with their best defenceman watching from the bench. That is the strange, gilded problem at the center of this team, and it is why the only verdict left to render on it comes in the spring.
Start with the depth, because it is close to unfair. Nathan MacKinnon scored 127 points. Martin Necas, still settling in after arriving in the Rantanen deal, added 100. Makar put up 79 from the back end. Brock Nelson, the third-line centre on this roster, scored 33 goals. Four players from four different rungs of the lineup, and every one of them would headline a lesser team.
| Player | Points | On-ice xGF% | Where he slots |
|---|---|---|---|
| Nathan MacKinnon | 127 | 65% | First-line centre |
| Martin Necas | 100 | 64% | Second-line centre |
| Cale Makar | 79 | 60% | No. 1 defenceman |
| Brock Nelson | 65 | 61% | Third-line centre |
Why the on-off undersells him
On a normal team, a great defenceman lifts a mediocre supporting cast and the on-off gap balloons. Makar does not get that luxury, because the minutes he is compared against include MacKinnon, Necas and Nelson tilting the ice themselves. The honest way to read his plus-six is not that Makar is only a little better than his replacements. It is that his replacements are a murderers' row and he is still the best of them. He logs the toughest matchups, quarterbacks a power play that turns penalties into near-certain goals, and drove a 60 percent share while adding 20 goals of his own from the blue line. Strip the context and the eye test says the same thing the tape does: nobody at his position bends a game like this.
The cracks are in the depth chart, not the marquee
If there is a soft spot, it is farther down. Parker Kelly scored 21 goals but the Avalanche controlled just 43 percent of the chances with him on the ice and 60 without him, one of the widest negative swings on any contender. Jack Drury (48 on, 59 off) and Nicolas Roy (43 on, 52 off) tell smaller versions of the same story. The blue line behind Makar is aging in real time, with Brent Burns and Josh Manson both posting on-ice shares below the team without them. Gabriel Landeskog, back after his long absence and quietly excellent in 60 games at a 63 percent clip, papers over some of it. But the bottom of this roster is where a playoff series gets pried open, and it is the one place Colorado is merely ordinary.
The alibi is gone
For years the Avalanche came with a caveat stapled to them: elite everywhere but the crease. That excuse died this season. Scott Wedgewood saved 23 goals above expected and Mackenzie Blackwood added eight more, and Colorado allowed 197 goals, fewer than any team in hockey. The goaltending was not a liability. It was a strength. Which removes the last external thing the franchise could point to when the season ends early again.
What is actually left to prove
Put it together and you have the best regular-season team in the sport by the number that matters most, with the fewest goals against, a functional crease, and two of the five best players alive in their primes. None of that is in question. What is in question is the only thing that has ever been: whether this group can win four rounds against the specific teams built to beat it, the Carolina and Vegas rosters that keep meeting it deep in the bracket and sending it home. Makar cannot do more than he is doing. He is the best defenceman in the world on the best team in the league, and for this franchise that has somehow become the easy part. The regular season is a formality now. The Avalanche exist, entirely, for eight weeks in the spring.