This is the Colorado Avalanche team we've been waiting for

This entire season has been about waiting.

Following a 56-game sprint of a season that saw the Avalanche dominate a bad division and emotionally crumble in a playoff series against Vegas, trusting this Avalanche team again was going to be difficult.

So we waited.

We kept waiting for the thing that was going to derail the Colorado Avalanche. Despite dealing with injuries from the first day of the season until the very last, the Avs won their way to the top seed out west.

They finished with a franchise record of 119 points despite punting on the final two weeks of the regular season. Even with that, we watched, we waited.

We waited to see if another surefire Norris Trophy-worthy season from Cale Makar would be usurped by someone else’s excellence (still possible!).

We waited for big offseason acquisition Darcy Kuemper to prove his mettle, then when he started playing great, we waited for him to crumble.

We waited for Nazem Kadri’s insane career year to stop being quite so crazy. We waited for Kadri to go full red mist and make another killer mistake to hurt his team and get himself suspended in the postseason.

We waited for Bowen Byram to find his way through the horrors of ongoing concussion problems, then when he returned we waited to see if he could hold up to the physicality of the NHL.

We waited for Sam Girard’s entire season to make sense, only for it to end prematurely in frustrating fashion.

We waited for Valeri Nichushkin’s breakout offensive season to slow down.

We waited for Colorado’s regulars and their multitude of trade deadline acquisitions to play together for the first time to see if they would even gel together.

When the playoffs arrived, we waited for the Nashville Predators to use their bruising physical style to punch the Avs in the mouth and send them into a tailspin.

We waited for the St. Louis Blues and their vaunted 9 20-goal scorers to wear down Colorado’s depth and show the Avalanche what real championship experience looks like now that they were healthy this year (versus last year’s COVID-driven sweep, I guess).

We waited for Colorado’s Game 5 collapse on home ice against the Blues to bring doom as St. Louis built a legendary comeback to be remembered for all days.

We waited for everyone’s midseason favorite, the Calgary Flames, to dispatch their bitter rival in the Battle of Alberta and then use their balanced attack and great goaltending to put a stop to the Avalanche.

Once that failed, we waited for the league’s two leading postseason scorers in Edmonton, Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl, to go toe-to-toe with Colorado’s stars and show them the gate.

Once we learned about Kuemper’s ongoing vision issues following the freak incident in Round 1 against Nashville, we waited for Francouz to drop the ball in net.

We waited for the version of Mike Smith the Canadian media was pumping up, the guy who was so brilliant after Game 1 in every series, including his historic shutout in Game 7 against the Los Angeles Kings.

We waited for Nathan MacKinnon and Cale Makar to prove unable to rise to the occasion, to meet the moment they talked all year about being ready for this time around.

We waited for someone to put the Colorado Avalanche on the mat and for the Colorado Avalanche to be unable to get up.

After compiling a 12-2 record en route to securing their berth in the Stanley Cup Final, we’re still waiting.

Maybe after all this waiting, we’ve been asking the wrong questions all along.

Instead of continuing to wait for whatever will put the nails in the coffin of this Colorado season, we should ask:

Are the Avs the hammer?