As I was sifting through the Mailbag questions, I found three from the same reader that all seemed interesting so I\u2019lll get to all of them below.<\/p>\n
If you missed it, you can also click back and read the first part of the July Mailbag. Enjoy!<\/p>\n
Question from aghadden<\/p>\n
I thought Cale Makar had a bit of an off year, still great stats, but not on par with HIS stats. I thought both he and Nathan MacKinnon disappeared a bit in tough games. Fair assessment or no? Did the Olympics affect them? With the big losses (no Olympic Gold, no Stanley Cup), do you expect them to be more motivated next year? <\/p>\n
Aarif\u2019s Response<\/p>\n
This is a loaded question with a few parts, and they\u2019re all good ones.<\/p>\n
It might sound crazy given Makar\u2019s talent, but I agree that he had a bit of a down year. It reminded me a lot of his 2022-23 season. He was still excellent, still one of the league\u2019s best, but he wasn\u2019t quite at that otherworldly Makar level we\u2019ve come to expect. What\u2019s even crazier is that once he got hurt in the playoffs, you could immediately see how lost the team was without him. And that\u2019s with him not being as good as he can be.<\/p>\n
As for MacKinnon, I thought he played like he was possessed this season. He was incredible and came through in big moments all year, just like Makar did. We saw that in the first round against Minnesota. Unfortunately, the way the Vegas series ended has overshadowed so much of what both players accomplished.<\/p>\n
I\u2019ve always thought the Olympics would have some sort of effect on Makar and MacKinnon. I just don\u2019t like using it as an excuse because it\u2019s what the players wanted. They wouldn\u2019t trade that experience for anything, especially if they had come home with a gold medal.<\/p>\n
And yes, I think every season that ends without a Stanley Cup only adds to their motivation for the next one.<\/p>\n
Question from aghadden<\/p>\n
Any of our potential bottom six forwards a good prospect to try out on the PK?<\/p>\n
Aarif\u2019s Response<\/p>\n
I slightly edited the question to say \u201cbottom six\u201d instead of \u201cfourth line\u201d because the Avalanche will need more than one new penalty-killing forward with Jack Drury and Valeri Nichushkin gone. And as we know, Jared Bednar loves having a surplus of PKers. <\/p>\n
I think you can pencil in Nic Roy and Nazem Kadri right away. Roy has been a regular penalty killer throughout his career, even if Colorado didn\u2019t use him much after acquiring him in March because its PK units were already set. Kadri was also an important penalty killer during his first stint with the Avalanche.<\/p>\n
Beyond that, I could see Fedor Svechkov and Zachary L\u2019Heureux getting opportunities to develop into full-time penalty killers. Both have some experience, and Bednar has always liked turning young bottom-six forwards into reliable PK options. It could help them develop a role with the team, too, just like it did for Parker Kelly before. <\/p>\n
Question aghadden<\/p>\n
How does this roster compare with the roster from the first half of last year, both head-to-head and vs the league.<\/p>\n
Aarif\u2019s Response<\/p>\n
I think it\u2019s better. I really do.<\/p>\n
I pulled the lineup below from my opening-night preview last season.<\/p>\n
Compared to this year\u2019s group, replacing Nichushkin with Jaden Schwartz is obviously a downgrade. But adding Kadri and Roy \u2014 along with the possibility of Gavin Brindley, T.J. Hughes, or Zachary L\u2019Heureux earning meaningful roles \u2014 gives me a lot more confidence in the bottom six than I had a year ago. I\u2019d also take Kelly on the fourth-line left wing and Logan O\u2019Connor on the right over the combination they opened with last season. And if we\u2019re comparing centers, I\u2019d probably still take Jack Drury over Svechkov today. <\/p>\n
On defense, Brett Kulak is an upgrade over Samuel Girard in this lineup. And assuming the \u201cLumberyard\u201d tandem is healthy from Day 1, that\u2019s another improvement over where they started last season.<\/p>\n
2025-26 Opening Night lineup
Artturi Lehkonen \u2014 Nathan MacKinnon \u2014 Martin Necas
Gabriel Landeskog \u2014 Brock Nelson \u2014 Valeri Nichushkin
Ross Colton \u2014 Jack Drury \u2014 Victor Olofsson
Joel Kiviranta \u2014 Parker Kelly \u2014 Gavin Brindley<\/p>\n
Devon Toews \u2014 Cale Makar
Samuel Girard \u2014 Josh Manson
Sam Malinski \u2014 Brent Burns<\/p>\n
Scott Wedgewood
Trent Miner<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As I was sifting through the Mailbag questions, I found three from the same reader that all seemed…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":755721,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[66],"tags":[1223,385,99],"class_list":["post-755720","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-colorado-avalanche","tag-nhl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/755720","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=755720"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/755720\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/755721"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=755720"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=755720"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=755720"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}