The past thirty years of Avalanche hockey have featured incredible highs, and some very, very dismal lows.
As an avid fan of The Simpsons, I’ve witnessed plenty of “best of times” moments, but also been subjected to a smattering of unpleasant “blursts” of times. In this latest edition of an ongoing off-season series, I take a look back through the past thirty years, highlighting one moment that stands among the best, and comparatively, the worst (or blurst, if you will) each season.
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Here are the best and blurst moments from another five years of Colorado Avalanche history.
2015-2016
The Best: NHL Stadium Series Weekend (February 26-27, 2016)
Ever since the initial announcement was made over a year ago, both Avs and Red Wings fans were chomping at the bit for this weekend to finally arrive.
Since the inception of both the NHL Winter Classic and Stadium Series, the present-era Red Wings had participated twice in outdoor contests, having played the Chicago Blackhawks and the Toronto Maple Leafs in the 2009 and 2014 Winter Classic, respectively.
The Avs, on the other hand, would be first-time hosts and first-time participants in an outdoor contest.
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Although the real game would be played on February 27, the alumni game between both clubs the day before drew significant interest. Both franchises assembled a who’s who of Hall of Fame talent, eager to lace up the skates in one final curtain call for the greatest hockey rivalry in the modern era.
Although the animosity had considerably cooled down over the years, the competitive nature on both sides was still as strong as ever.
As he had done in the first-ever Avs game in 1995, Valeri Kamensky opened the scoring for the Avs in the first period. Both alumni captains would also score in the period, with Detroit’s Steve Yzerman tying the game, then Joe Sakic putting the Avs alumni ahead 2-1.
Milan Hejduk scored the only goal of the second period to increase the lead for the Avs alumni. Craig Billington relieved Patrick Roy in goal for the third period. Raymond Bourque scored to make it a 4-1 lead, which Billington preserved after stopping a penalty shot attempt for Detroit’s Tomas Holmström. Brendan Shanahan would score the second goal for the Detroit alumni, cutting the Avs’ alumni lead in half, but Stéphane Yelle would put the game out of reach, securing a 5-2 victory for the Avs greats of yesteryear.
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Both teams would shake hands after the game, then pose together at center ice, a sight that was unfathomable nearly twenty years earlier.
The next night, the modern-era Avs weren’t so fortunate. Despite having a 2-1 lead in the first period off goals from Nathan MacKinnon and Tyson Barrie, Detroit scored two goals in the third period to take the lead. Alex Tanguay tied the game moments later, but Detroit would score another pair of goals (including one on an empty net) to defeat the Avs by a 5-3 score.
Both teams came together for another handshake line at the end of the contest. The Cold War between the Avs and the Red Wings was now over, but the ending lived up to all the hype.
The best moment of the season, and certainly a memorable one, no matter what side you were on.
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The Blurst: Patrick Roy Rips Matt Duchene’s 30th Goal Celebration (April 03, 2016)
The Avs were chasing down the final wild card spot in the Western Conference as the calendar flipped to April. They trailed the Minnesota Wild by five points in the standings, and failed to gain ground with losses in four of their previous five games. Coming into a key matchup against division rival St. Louis (who defeated the Avs at Scottrade Center three nights earlier), they needed a strong start to turn their luck around.
That turn of luck didn’t pan out exactly as the Avs hoped.
Gabe Landeskog put the Avs on the penalty kill early in the first period, and David Backes made them pay for it. Goals by Magnus Pääjärvi and Colton Parayko followed later in the period, and the Avs trailed by a 3-0 margin after the first twenty minutes. Both teams made goalie switches in the second period: Calvin Pickard replaced Semyon Varlamov, and Anders Nilsson came into relieve an injured Jake Allen.
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The switch in goal didn’t improve the Avs’ fortunes on offense, as Alex Pietrangelo scored the only goal in the second period, and the Avs failed to register any offense through forty minutes.
With under five minutes to play in the third period, Avs forward Mikhael Grigorenko passed the puck to Mikkel Bødker in the slot. He fired the puck towards Nilsson, and Matt Duchene got just enough of his blade to graze the puck before it eluded the Blues goaltender to give the Avs their first goal of the game.
The goal was Duchene’s 30th of the season, the first time he had hit the milestone. He pumped his arms excitedly in the air, and Bødker retrieved the puck amid the cheers from the Pepsi Center crowd.
Less than 90 seconds later, and with Pickard on the bench, St. Louis forward Troy Brouwer scored into an empty net. The Avs lost by a score of 5-1, their third loss in a row and second to St. Louis in their past three games.
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Head coach Patrick Roy used his postgame comments to air his frustration, taking issue with Duchene’s celebration. “It’s a four-nothing goal. Big cheer. Are you kidding me? What is that? I mean, it’s not the reflect we want from our guys, not at all. We need to change the mindset; I think we have a losing mindset right now. I think we have to find ways to believe more in ourselves, and sometimes things aren’t going to go our way.”
Duchene offered his own perspective on the game, which focused more on the lost opportunity to inch towards a playoff berth instead of his own personal achievement. “Maybe it’s something [when] I look back at the season after, you know, enjoy it on a personal level, but, I mean, you play and you try to score goals, and make the playoffs, and if you’re not in the playoffs, you know, it doesn’t really mean as much as you want it to mean. No one remembers that, and no one cares.
“Everyone just cares who’s in the playoffs and that’s all we care about,” Duchene continued, “and that’s all I care about. Obviously, it’s a nice milestone, but I’m not thinking about it at all right now. I’m just very disappointed in this loss tonight.”
The next day, both Roy and Duchene attempted to clear the air.
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“We talked, we had a good chat yesterday,” Duchene said. “I totally understand where he’s coming from, what he’s trying to do. I’m on board with it; I think we all are. It was one of those things where right away, I certainly knew it wasn’t the right thing, the right reaction. I kind of buried my head after that, even going back to the bench. I understood it wasn’t the right thing. We had a good talk, and it’s all good.”
“I think Matt Duchene is a great person, ” said Roy, “and I think when you’re willing to learn, like I was when I was young, I think that goes a long way. That does not mean becoming a leader comes overnight. Experience makes you a better leader. I made many mistakes. I got slapped in the fingers by vets in my first years.”
The Avs lost their final three games of the regular season, missing the playoffs for the second year in a row.
Four months later, Roy would one-up his outburst (outblurst?) by giving the Avs the finger on his way out the door.
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For all we know, it was one of the fingers that got slapped by the vets in his first years of playing.
2016-2017
The Best: Jared Bednar Hired as Head Coach (August 25, 2016)
Believe it or not, Avs fans, something good did happen this year!
When Patrick Roy tendered a very abrupt resignation on August 11, he threw the entire front office—not to mention Avs fans—for a loop.
“I have thought long and hard over the course of the summer about how I might improve this team to give it the depth it needs and bring it to a higher level,” Roy said in a release that day. “To achieve this, the vision of the coach and VP-hockey operations needs to be perfectly aligned with that of the organization. He must also have a say in the decisions that impact the team’s performance. These conditions are not currently met.”
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With less than a month to go in the off-season, and training camp on the horizon, Avs general manager Joe Sakic had his work cut out for him. Many of the top coaching candidates were already off the market, but that didn’t faze Sakic. Two weeks later, he had his man: Lake Erie Monsters head coach Jared Bednar. Bednar, then a spry 44 years young, had already compiled a promising coaching resume in the minors.
Through parts of fourteen seasons, Bednar was a head coach for eight of those years, and spent six as an assistant. He amassed a 251-148-42 record, culminating in a sweep of the Hershey Bears (the AHL affiliate of the Avs until 2005) that June, securing the first Calder Cup trophy in Lake Erie’s history. He had also won the ECHL’s Kelly Cup with the South Carolina Stingrays in 2009, where he also spent several seasons as a player prior to beginning his coaching career.
“I was certainly happy to be considered and I’m ecstatic to have been named head coach and I’m looking forward to getting to work,” said Bednar. “When I started coaching, my ultimate goal was obviously to get to the NHL and to coach at the highest level and getting an opportunity to compete for a Stanley Cup. That was my goal going into it and I worked real hard trying to achieve those goals, and this is another step in that direction.”
Nearly ten years later, Bednar is the franchise leader in regular season games coached (700), wins (390), losses (246), points (864), playoff games coached (81), playoff wins (49-tied with Bob Hartley), and playoff losses (32). With the Avs’ 2-1 victory over the Tampa Bay Lightning on June 26, 2022, Bednar became the first (and only) coach to win a Stanley Cup, Calder Cup, and Kelly Cup championship.
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It may have taken him six years, but he achieved his goal, and was truly the highlight of what was to come that season, because what lay before him and every Avs fans can be summarized in one word: pain.
The Blurst: EVERYTHING (October 15, 2016 – April 09, 2017)
Jared Bednar’s first step towards competing for the Stanley Cup, in hindsight, may as well have been off a cliff.
After winning a roller-coaster of a season opener against the Dallas Stars by a score of 6-5, which featured an ultra-rare hat trick from free agent signee Joe Colborne (remember him?), the Avs would assemble a 4-3 record in their first seven games.
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It was the last time they would be above .500 during the season. They wouldn’t be above the .500 mark again until October 5, 2017, when the Avs would defeat the New York Rangers at Madison Square Garden.
(For those of you keeping score, that’s a total of 356 consecutive days. which probably felt like 356 consecutive years.)
The Avs then proceeded to lose twenty-three of their next thirty-two games—including a season-worst 10-1 beatdown courtesy of the Montréal Canadiens at Centre Bell on December 10—to close out the calendar year.
Not counting the two COVID-shortened seasons (spoilers), the Avs lost fewer than twenty-three games twice in an entire season: 2021-2022 (19), and 2025-2026 (16). This cursed version did that in under three months.
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Things went from worse to…even more worse. On January 27, the Avs announced that goaltender Semyon Varlamov would have hip surgery and miss the remainder of the regular season. Varlamov had been dealing with recurring groin issues since December, and with the season all but lost, having him undergo surgery and allowing as much recovery time to prepare for the following season was the sensible move.
Meanwhile, the Avs couldn’t stop the bleeding on the ice.
Prolonged losing streaks were frequent. This team had three five-game losing streaks, one six-game losing streak, one seven game losing streak, and one nine-game losing streak. They never won more than three games in a row at any point during the season.
And then, during a visit to Winnipeg on March 4…the free-falling Avs found out that rock bottom has a basement.
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Already trailing 5-0 in the second period and with Winnipeg on the power play, Nathan MacKinnon poked the puck away from Jets defenseman Jacob Trouba. Blake Comeau pounced on the loose puck at center ice, skated in unimpeded on goaltender Connor Hellebuyck and…inexplicably slowed up, then turned to pass the puck back to MacKinnon, only to have Winnipeg’s Patrik Laine intercept his pass and turn the play back towards the Avs zone.
Here’s the sequence, in all its perplexing glory.
The season-long waking nightmare ended on April 9, with the Avs losing to the St. Louis Blues by a score of 3-2 at Scottrade Center. The Avs finished with a League-worst 22-56-4 record and 48 points in the standings. Incredibly, this is the third worst finish in franchise history as the Quebec Nordiques finished with a 12-61-7 record and 31 points during the 1989-1990 season, followed by a 16-50-14 record and 46 points the year after.
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On April 29, as teams gathered for the NHL Draft Lottery, one final insult was delivered to the Avs. Despite having the League’s worst record, and therefore, the best possible odds to win the lottery, they wound up with the fourth overall pick, as the New Jersey Devils, Philadelphia Flyers, and Dallas Stars wound up finishing ahead of the Avs in that order.
A franchise-defining blurst that stretched throughout an entire season all but left the Avs for dead, but not for long.
2017-2018
The Best: Game 82 (April 07, 2018)
The expectations for the Avs were virtually nonexistent when the 2017-2018 season began, and for good reason, based on their disastrous regular season campaign a year earlier.
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For them to find themselves at the doorstep of the postseason one year removed from their worst season since relocating to Denver was nothing short of miraculous.
They almost didn’t get to this point (spoilers), and when opportunity knocked on that Sunday afternoon at Pepsi Center, the entire roster answered.
Sam Girard got the Avs on the board with a rocket of a shot from the St. Louis blue line past goaltender Jake Allen in the first period. Tyson Barrie would double the lead in the second period with a blue line shot on the power play. St. Louis responded a few minutes later with a power play goal of their own to make things interesting, but Nathan MacKinnon restored the two goal lead late in the period.
Goaltender Jonathan Bernier and the Avs defense held strong in the third period, thwarting every opportunity from St. Louis. Blues head Coach Mike Yeo pulled Allen with over 4:30 left in regulation in the hopes that his team could pull even. Over a minute later, Gabe Landeskog collected a loose puck and launched it across the ice into the empty net to the roar of the entire crowd. His teammates mobbed him in excitement, knowing that they were minutes away from securing a playoff berth.
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St. Louis scored a meaningless goal with under a minute to play, but the outcome was certain: the Avs would claim the final wild card spot in the Western Conference and face the Western Conference-leading Nashville Predators in the first round of the Stanley Cup Playoffs.
The Avs finished the regular season with a 43-30-9 record and 95 points, nearly doubling their wins and point totals from the previous season (22 wins and 48 points, respectively).
Putting the exclamation point in such a high-stakes game was the defining moment of the season.
The Blurst: The Injury Bug Strikes Again (March 31, 2018)
As the end of the regular season neared, both the Avs and the St. Louis Blues were in a hotly contested battle for the final wild card spot in the playoffs. Both teams were in action on March 30: St. Louis was playing the upstart Vegas Golden Knights at T-Mobile Arena, and the Avs hosted the Chicago Blackhawks at Pepsi Center.
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Vegas defeated St. Louis in overtime, but for the Avs, victory was all but certain. With the Avs leading 5-0 late in the period, things took a turn when Chicago right winger Tomáš Jurčo lost his footing when carrying the puck towards goaltender Semyon Varlamov. He fell to the ice and crashed into Varlamov, resulting in an injury that would take him out for the remainder of the game. Jonathan Bernier held things down until the final buzzer.
The next day, the Avs announced that Varlamov would miss the remainder of the regular season with a lower body injury as a result of the play. In addition to Varlamov, defenseman Erik Johnson would out for six weeks due to a fractured non-displaced patella.
The news was certainly a tough pill to swallow at such a late stage of the season. St. Louis had one extra game to play as the season wound down, putting additional pressure on the Avs to perform at their best. They responded in lackluster fashion, losing their next three games to set up the win-and-get-in scenario on home ice against St. Louis.
For their part, St. Louis was equally inept, losing three straight games as well. They managed to eke out one final win against Chicago before flying to Denver for the Game 82 showdown.
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Of course, the Avs managed to overcome a potential blurst-worthy collapse and squeaked into the Stanley Cup Playoffs for the first time in four years. Despite bowing out in six games to Nashville, one can’t help but wonder how they would have fared against them with both a healthy Varlamov and Johnson in the mix.
2018-2019
The Best: Love at First Shot (April 15, 2019)
Out to build upon last season’s accomplishments, the Avs sought their second consecutive playoff berth, a feat that they hadn’t accomplished since 2006. Unlike last year, they didn’t wait for last-minute heroics to punch their ticket to the postseason; an overtime goal by Erik Johnson against the Winnipeg Jets on April 4 at Pepsi Center got the job done.
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The Avs drew the Western Conference-leading Calgary Flames as their first round opponent. The Avs split the first two games at Scotiabank Saddledome, and returned home for Game Three with an opportunity to take the lead in the series.
Rumors had been swirling that prized defensive prospect and reigning Hobey Baker winner Cale Makar, whom the Avs drafted fourth overall in 2017, would sign with the Avs once UMass had been eliminated from the NCAA Frozen Four, which had been underway as the playoffs began. As the saying goes, where there’s smoke, there’s fire: Makar signed with the Avs the day after UMass had been eliminated, clearing the way for him to join the team in time for Game Three.
The buzz inside Pepsi Center was palpable as fans waited for their first glimpse of Makar in burgundy and blue. The entire crowd was on their feet as the Avs took pregame warm-ups, laser focused on Makar wearing his now-trademark number 8.
Head coach Jared Bednar didn’t throw Makar into the mix right away. Only after Nathan MacKinnon scored back to back goals to give the Avs a 2-0 lead did he decide to test the waters with Makar.
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His patience was rewarded quickly: on his first shift, Makar trailed MacKinnon into the Calgary zone, and after getting the puck from MacKinnon, he flung it towards Calgary goaltender Mike Smith. The puck zipped between Smith’s pads, giving the Avs a 3-0 lead, and marking Makar’s first career goal in the NHL.
Makar was immediately mobbed by Gabe Landeskog, along with MacKinnon, Alex Kerfoot, and Tyson Barrie.
Being in the crowd for that game, I remember being in complete awe as Makar skated into the zone and fired that shot past Smith. The crowd erupted into a frenzy and my jaw fell open at what I just witnessed. After that play, I knew that Makar was really going to be something special.
The Avs would win Game Three by a score of 6-2. Makar’s goal wound up being the game-winner.
Two more victories followed, and for the first time since 2008, the Avs would advance to the second round.
Scoring your first goal with your first shot during your first shift in your first game and it’s the game-winner? Not a bad bit of business.
Indisputably, the best business of the season.
The Blurst: Shark Sandwich (May 08, 2019)
After extinguishing the Flames in the first round, the Avs would face the San Jose Sharks in the second round of the Stanley Cup Playoffs. This marked the fifth playoff series between both clubs, and the first time since 2010 that they would meet in the postseason.
Both teams traded victories throughout the series, and Gabe Landeskog’s overtime goal in Game Six would set up the winner-take-all Game Seven back at the Shark Tank.
San Jose would stake a two-goal lead in the first period, but Mikko Rantanen would get the Avs on the board just before intermission. Near the halfway point of regulation, Derrick Brassard knocked the puck away from Sharks forward Barclay Goodrow. Nathan MacKinnon swooped in to gather the the puck and raced down the near boards. His pass found a wide open Colin Wilson, who beat Martin Jones for the game-tying goal.
Or did he?
San Jose head coach Pete DeBoer challenged the call for offside. After the play was reviewed, the officials determined that Landeskog, who was in the San Jose zone prior to MacKinnon’s zone entry, was offside despite the fact that he was heading off the ice as part of a line change. The goal was overturned, and the Avs bench was livid.
Minutes later, San Jose defenseman Brent Burns fired the puck towards the far corner in the Avs zone, where teammate Joonas Donskoi collected it, skated around the back of the Avs goal uncontested, and fired the puck to the left of goaltender Phillipp Grubauer to restore the Sharks’ two goal lead.
In a matter of minutes, the Avs went from being on even footing with San Jose to trailing by a two goal margin.
The Avs fought valiantly, and despite a goal from Tyson Jost early in the third period giving them some hope, they couldn’t find the equalizer (again). They would fall in Game Seven by a 3-2 final score, their playoff dreams once again at an end.
If not for that sequence, and the resulting offside call, this series could have a different outcome for the Avs. Unfortunately, this blurst ensured that it didn’t.
2019-2020
The Best: Nazem Kadri’s Last-Second Heroics Seal the Deal Against St. Louis (August 02, 2020)
In March, the COVID-19 pandemic forced the NHL to suspend the season. Five months later, the NHL rolled out a carefully-controlled playoff format, where the Western Conference teams would play in a playoff “bubble” at Rogers Arena in Edmonton, while the Eastern Conference teams would do the same at Scotiabank Arena in Toronto.
A play-in round, followed by a short round-robin series of games, determined seeding. In their first round-robin qualifier, the Avs would face the St. Louis Blues in a rematch reminiscent of their regular season finale two years earlier.
David Perron opened the scoring on a first period power play goal for St. Louis. The Avs peppered goaltender Jordan Binnington through the first two periods, but they couldn’t break through.
Early in the third period, St. Louis defenseman Colton Parayko wound up for a shot on Avs goalie Philipp Grubauer, but his botched shot attempt was intercepted by Mikko Rantanen. He carried the puck into the St. Louis zone and passed it over to a wide open Ryan Graves. Graves fanned on his first shot attempt, but made his second one count as he sent the puck past Binnington to tie the game.
The Avs continued their siege of Binnington, but he turned aside everything that came his way. With Alex Steen in the box near the end of regulation, a shot from Gabe Landeskog bounced off the near post. A wide open Nazem Kadri swooped towards the puck and fired it into the net past Binnington as time expired.
As Kadri and the Avs celebrated the goal, the play was reviewed to determine if the puck entered the goal before time expired. Upon further review, the puck crossed the goal line at 0.1 seconds, securing a 2-1 victory for the Avs.
This game had all the drama and excitement of a Stanley Cup playoff game, even if it was a qualifying match. In the uncertain landscape created by COVID, being able to experience the joy of hockey felt almost…normal, if only for a few minutes.
The Blurst: Cale Cuts Down His Captain (September 02, 2020)
It still might be a little too soon for this one.
With the Avs trailing 3-2 in their second round series to the Dallas Stars, Game Six was nothing short of a must-win. As the second period wound down, Gabe Landeskog was preparing to chase down the puck in the Avs zone alongside Andrew Cogliano, who had been playing for Dallas at the time.
As both men skated away from the corner, Cale Makar, who was down on the ice, swung his left leg back as he attempted to regain his footing. His skate blade sliced through Landeskog’s kneepad, giving him a deep cut at the top of his knee. Landeskog stumbled to the ice momentarily, then recognized something was very wrong. He immediately skated to the Avs bench and hobbled his way down the dressing room.
The Avs went on to win Game Six by a 4-1 margin, but were unable to close out the series in Game Seven. In Game Seven, the Avs turned to goaltender Michael Hutchinson once more after backstopping the Avs to two consecutive wins. Landeskog was deemed unfit to play, and an overtime goal from Joel Kiviranta completed the hat trick for the fresh-faced rookie, ensuring yet another Game Seven victory for Dallas, this one by a score of 5-4.
Landeskog would return for the beginning of the 2020-2021 season, seemingly no worse for the wear.
As it would turn out, Landeskog’s injury was more than just a mere flesh wound.
Was there a best (or blurst) from these five years of Avalanche hockey that was overlooked? Share your thoughts in the comments below!
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