Avalanche Roundtable: Who is Colorado's biggest threat in the Central?

As we start to shift our coverage here more towards the inevitable NHL draft, the focus naturally shifts to the future. Colorado and St. Louis were setting up for an intriguing sprint to the Central Division title that appears will be cut short by the ongoing pandemic.

This brings us to today’s topic: Considering salary cap situations, prospect pools, and current NHL talent, who is Colorado’s biggest threat in the Central Division in the next three years, which is the duration of Nathan MacKinnon’s current sweetheart contract? Consider Arizona, who is set to move into the division when Seattle enters the league.

AJ: St. Louis is the obvious immediate threat. They’re very good at what they do and are dedicated to playing that style. They have a lower ceiling on skill than most other Cup contenders and history is not kind to teams that have to rely on outworking opponents being able to compete long-term. Look at recent LA Kings teams as an example of what happens when the grind wears teams down and this Blues group is already getting to the point where key players are exiting their primes.

They’re already capped out and Alex Pietrangelo is set to hit unrestricted free agency and retaining him would take moving mountains at this point. To top it off, they’ve burned through their prospect pool via trades and have very little coming in terms of youth.

Dallas gets a little older every year but not much better and has essentially wasted multiple years of truly elite goaltending. As long as Ben Bishop remains awesome, they’ll be competitive but I’m not buying the real stock.

Nashville is loaded with talent but something is clearly not working with that group and now goaltending becomes a legitimate question as Juuse Saros is forced to take the starting job. As his workload has increased in the last two years, his effectiveness has decreased and goaltenders his size don’t have a very good track record.

The team that scares me the most is Winnipeg. They’re re-tooling their defense already and it was truly bad this year but they have an explosive, high-end forward corps that isn’t going anywhere and an elite goaltender in his prime signed long-term. They’ve already started using draft capital to fix the defense and if they can manage to convince anyone decent in free agency to take their money, they represent a major problem for everyone else in the Central. Their financial limitations and unattractiveness as a destination city for free agents could put a hard ceiling on their ability to build a contender, however.

Evan: I’ll be honest and say at the moment, none of them really scare me over the next three years. St. Louis is the obvious one, but considering they may be on the brink of losing their top defenseman, that would be a huge step back for them.

The problem with this question is that even two years ago, I wouldn’t have put St. Louis in my top two as far as scary teams go in the division, but things can change so quickly in this league. Even Colorado was in a tough spot three years ago. I will almost certainly be wrong here but I see Colorado as far and away the team-best set up over the next three seasons. I’m not sure it’s all that close, but as I noted, things are subject to change in this league very quickly.

Of the other teams in the division, Winnipeg is the biggest threat because I trust their goaltending more than the rest, but the rest of their team has taken a step back. I’ll be a little different and say that Chicago does scare me a little bit. Patrick Kane hasn’t really slowed down all that much, and I think Kirby Dach is going to be very, very good. They also appear to magically be able to escape bad contracts, which helps them big time in the cap world. All these teams have big question marks somewhere in the lineup, but these two scare me a little more than the others.

Rudo: Minnesota is not really a threat as long as they are anchored down by those aging contracts. Chicago has been trending up but I’ll believe in the warp speed rebuild when I see it completed. Those two don’t scare me at all, they should be teams Colorado can chew up and spit out regularly over the next three years.

Dallas seems to have missed their window as they went all-in on aging vets this year. Captain Benn is on the wrong side of 30 and they don’t have a ton of truly high-end youth in the system outside of Heiskanen and maybe Dellandrea. Both Bishop and Khudobin are in their mid-thirties and while Oettinger waits in the wings you never really know with a fresh NHLer at that position. Their offensive depth is woeful and I don’t see the avenue to contending for them.

St. Louis is the immediate threat but their waters are about to get very murky this offseason. Their captain is all but out the door and with the cap potentially staying flat next year they are going to struggle just to retain the players they have like pending RFA Vince Dunn. Binnington has proved himself a capable goalie but nothing like the magician he was in the second half of last season. They are paying multiple mid-thirties forwards $5M+ and are just going to have a tough time maneuvering next season. My love for Nikita Alexandrov aside, their prospect pool isn’t really where it needs to be to provide them a consistent stream of cheap effective players. They’ll be competitive but I don’t see them as contenders like the Avs.

Winnipeg is going to be a threat with Hellebyuck in goal. The only major internal contract they’ll have to sign in the next three years is Laine but we’ve seen them struggle to sign free agents without shelling out the big bucks. They could probably stand to nibble around the edges of the top six as Wheeler is starting to age and their prospects haven’t hit top-six caliber for various reasons. The defense clearly needs more but they do have Heinola likely ready next season, one big-name defenseman could catapult them into contention.

I’m still holding onto hope that Nashville figures it out and they can battle for years to come. That team just seems far too talented to struggle as much as they have this season. Forsberg should be just starting his prime, Johansen should be in the middle of his, Duchene on the back end but should at least have a few good years left. That forward core is just so deep and outside of Granlund all of the key pieces are more or less locked up.  The top of their defense is still stacked, Josi a Norris candidate and Ellis having the best year of his career when he was healthy. The big question here is goaltending, Rinne has fallen off a cliff and just is not the answer so they have moved on to Saros who this season proved to be a capable starter but not spectacular. I see this season as more of a mirage as they move on Rinne and expect them to be in the thick of it again next season. If they could just get one or two true superstar years from their top forwards they could be a juggernaut and that’s the stock I’m buying. Let the Rivalry de Duchene commence.