Life is about to drastically change for the Colorado Avalanche

There’s a sweet spot in the life of every sports team where the fun far exceeds expectations and there’s really no downside when that club finally ends up losing.

For the Avalanche, that sweet spot was last season. Making the postseason for the second straight year but just barely sneaking in again and being the eighth seed with just 90 points tempered postseason expectations.

Then the Avs bodied the Calgary Flames, the top team in the west during the regular season, and pushed a veteran-laden Cup contending San Jose Sharks to the absolute limit in a grueling seven-game series. We all appreciated the journey, not having been on a ride like that in many years.

The inevitable result of that journey, however, is the expectations that follow. As the Avalanche prepares for their first-round playoff series against the Arizona Coyotes, the team they battled head-to-head for the final playoff spot just one season ago, not only are the Avs seen as the favorites in the series but the odds in Vegas place them as the favorite to win the Stanley Cup.

Keep in mind, this is a club that didn’t win its division during the truncated regular season and then failed to secure the top seed during last week’s round-robin phase, but here they are as the betting favorite to win the whole thing.

The Avs have operated as the fun-to-watch upstarts the last couple of years, mainly behind the development of Nathan MacKinnon into a superstar and his most common linemates, Gabe Landeskog and Mikko Rantanen, into the vaunted three-headed monster.

There was always one caveat to those teams, however; the expectations were pushed into the future.

“They’re going to be great someday.”

“Watch out for the Avs in a few years.”

“Colorado is building a team that’s going to contend pretty soon.”

“Pretty soon” is here, folks. Nobody knows this better than the man tasked with trying to topple the Avs before they even get started, Arizona head coach Rick Tocchet.

“You got an hour?” Tocchet asked when pressed on what makes the Avalanche dangerous.

“They’re highly skilled, hard on the puck, they’re in the top 10 of most categories,” Tocchet said. “They have arguably one of the best players in the league. It’s just a well-rounded team built to win right now. It’s a big challenge for our hockey club.”

Tocchet wasn’t done.

“They’re one of the best teams off the rush. That’s probably one of the biggest things for me. You’ve got to make sure you’re above them, make sure you’re skating forward to defend them. You can’t back off. That’s the worst thing you can do but you also have to make sure you have numbers back.

Listen, when you play a team that’s a highly rush team and they press you, you have to defend the puck. We have to play fast, too. This isn’t about us just defending and defending. We’ve got to go the other way quickly and hopefully we can counterattack on their aggressiveness.”

That counterattack mentality served Arizona well and will have to be something the Avalanche keeps a close eye on in their series as they can be a little too mistake-prone when they get frustrated that the offense isn’t coming easily for them.

Against this Coyotes club, it certainly won’t come easy. The world is now expected of this Avalanche club. They aren’t up-and-comers anymore. They’re contenders.

It’s one thing for the organization to hold itself to a high standard and try to live by it. It’s another when the outside world starts to lean on the organization as a top-flight team.

Losses are no longer about getting them next time but rather explaining why next time is even necessary. Winning is less a reward and more of a relief. This team is expected to produce something special.

Living up to that is going to be very difficult. The best things in life always are.

Can the Avalanche deliver?