Joe Sakic has transformed the Avalanche into a potential juggernaut

It was a relatively quiet Monday morning. The Avalanche scheduled two pressers, one with newly-acquired Brandon Saad, the other with Joe Sakic, to talk about the only external move the Avs had made to improve their team.

There were internal contracts, of course, as Andre Burakovsky and Valeri Nichushkin got new contracts. As we’d come to learn, Ryan Graves had agreed to a new three-year deal but it hadn’t been announced yet.

But the real focus was on the weekend deal with the Chicago Blackhawks that saw Nikita Zadorov and Anton Lindholm head to the midwest in exchange for Brandon Saad and Dennis Gilbert.

For Saad’s part, he was predictably excited to be headed to a team with hopes of competing for a Stanley Cup. He said all the right things about bringing his championship experience to a city hoping to win its first since the magical 2001 run. That was all good and well.

Even things with Sakic started pretty normally. He was excited to talk about what Saad would bring to the Avs as they got the second-line forward they were seeking to give them six bonafide forwards in their top six. The added depth made them scary. It was easy for Sakic to flex a little on that point.

“We do have another opening that’s for sure,” Sakic said about his new opening on defense. “We felt this was the best thing for us. We were looking for a second-line player. That was one thing we wanted to address. That and maybe a top-four d-man. We’re extremely happy to have Brandon with us. He’s a guy we’ve watched for years and we think he’s going to be a great fit as one of our top six. We feel like we’ve solidified our top-six group and also our bottom six. We’re pretty content with the depth that we have upfront for sure.”

See how we slipped that “and maybe a top-four d-man” in there? We’ll come back to that. Before, more of what Sakic had to say about his newest forward.

“We want to see where it goes for sure,” Sakic said about the possibility of re-signing Saad, whose contract expires after next season. “We think he’s going to be a great fit and do a tremendous job. He’s a really good two-way player. He goes to the net, he gets his goals…we have a lot of great shooters, perimeter shooters but he’ll be good. We think it’s going to be a great addition.”

Back to that comment about defense. That sly dog knew what was coming. Of course, at that point, none of us knew what was going on. We were just trying to figure out what was next for the defenders already on the roster, particularly the NHL-ready prospects in Conor Timmins and Bowen Byram.

“We’re always looking to improve,” Sakic said. “That’s never going to stop. We’d love to try and add there as well for depth purposes. We faced a lot of injuries in the playoffs and we’d like to add reinforcements there. We’ve seen enough of [Timmins]. We know he’s ready to maybe take the next step. Byram, we’re going to give every opportunity. But also knowing we don’t want to put a lot of pressure on them to have to…we want them to come in slowly and at their own pace.”

Give every opportunity to Byram? Sounded great at the time. Increased depth and continued cap flexibility continued to be the main talking points for Sakic, however.

“You have to have depth to win,” Sakic said. “We feel we’ve addressed that. This is probably the one year, unfortunately, well, with the flat cap in the next three years, everyone was projecting to go up a few million in each year to give teams breathing room. You see what’s going on out there in the market. There’s not a lot of activity that you’d normally see. We’re going to be in tight starting next year when Gabe and Cale and Grubi come up. We’re trying to put together as deep a team as possible to make a run this year.”

That last line really stood out to me. On its face, it’s a general manager saying what he always says in the offseason. There’s a different feeling around this organization, though. They were as close as it gets to a conference finals appearance, maybe more. They knew they were on the cusp of being the real deal out west coming into the offseason. They just needed some more help.

Sakic casually announced the team was avoiding arbitration and had agreed to terms on a three-year deal with Ryan Graves with an AAV of $3.16M. Some sticker shock but Graves was a revelation for the Avs last year as he was primarily on the left side next to Cale Makar.

“Ryan is a big guy,” Sakic said. “He’s a defender. We feel with him, Erik Johnson, Ian Cole, they give us some physical presence. I’m not sure if you noticed but Cale Makar can play a physical style, too. You don’t want him banging out there but he’s a strong kid that’s not going to shy away. We feel like our defense is going to be fine.”

Yeah, I bet. It’s especially easy to feel that way when your team turns around hours later and traded two second-round picks (in 2021 and 2022) to the New York Islanders for Devon Toews.

So much for that quiet Monday.

Toews has been one of the more unsung heroes of that fantastic Isles squad in the last two years. He’s a great skater with good size and uses his great hockey sense to put himself in position to make plays all the damn time. He’s been a key player for Barry Trotz for the last two years, slowly earning more and more trust.

In Colorado, he adds another slick-skating defender to the back end who can transition pucks from defense to offense on his very own. It’s becoming something of a staple for the Avalanche, who essentially swapped out a classic hulking blueliner with poor puck skills for a “modern” defenseman who utilizes his legs and skill to create breakouts.

Don’t for a minute think we’re talking about a Tyson Barrie clone here, however, as Toews doesn’t sacrifice any defense for offense. He’s excellent both in his own end and driving play the other direction. He’s not a first-pairing player so this doesn’t have the same impact as, say, Vegas signing Alex Pietrangelo, but Toews adds another talented all-around player to a back end that, if Byram really does get every opportunity, is now teeming with them.

As Sam Girard gets another year older and Cale Makar enters his sophomore year, the 26-year-old Toews solidifies both the depth and quality of Colorado’s defense. If they’re serious about giving Byram a long look even after acquiring Toews, Graves might have just signed a three-year deal to man the bench or he pushes wily veteran Ian Cole to the bench.

The other conversation is Erik Johnson’s injury suffered in Game 1 against Dallas is significant and he won’t be ready for the start of next season. If that’s the case, Toews, who can play both the left and right side, becomes the ultimate chess piece for the Avs as they make due in Johnson’s absence.

If healthy, the future of Graves and/or Cole becomes even more in question. Toews is also an unsigned RFA (for now…) so the possibility that Sakic isn’t done wheeling and dealing has to be considered. Colorado sits on just $6.7M in cap space with Toews and Tyson Jost unsigned. If both sign, that puts Colorado at 12F/6D/2G.

Those two will likely chew through most of that remaining space, making it tough to see where they’ll fit in any additional bodies unless they do more trading or Johnson goes on long-term injured reserve (LTIR, a mechanism that allows teams to exceed the cap in the event of a player suffering a serious injury).

At this point, how they fill the rest of the roster is almost immaterial. It’s just details. What the Avs have done is take the team that went into overtime of Game 7 of the second round despite playing a third goaltender and missing four regular skaters and simply add to it.

In adding Saad and Toews, they’ve only lost Zadorov, who was set to be replaced by Byram or Timmins anyway. It’s a clear upgrade with the potential for even more depending on what happens with Byram.

In division, St. Louis lost Pietrangelo but signed Torey Krug (a net negative but mitigated somewhat because Krug is damn good in his own right). Dallas has done nothing substantial so far. Nashville has only signed depth players. Minnesota is doing who the hell knows what. Chicago is clearly not planning on taking next season seriously. Winnipeg has gotten better but only marginally so and they’re out of money (again).

The arms race in the west is on. Sakic and the Avalanche are right at the front of the pack with Vegas. Avs fans have long waxed poetic about the days of Pierre Lacroix being bold and going for it every year.

We’re seeing the beginning of that killer instinct Sakic showed as a player carrying over to his GM career now. He identifies what needs to be done and he makes it happen. He finds a way to thread the needle of acquiring needs from a position of strength.

He’s put the Avs at the forefront of the western conference, maybe the league. The Avs are set up to be the team to beat for next year. “Quoteless Joe” the player has turned into “Thunder Joe” the trade master. Opposing GMs are going to learn the same lesson Pierre Dorion did and change his contact info to “DO NOT ANSWER”.

This is the Colorado Avalanche’s time.

The golden era is back.