Nicolas Roy didn’t come to Colorado to be a star.

He came to help the Avalanche win a Stanley Cup.

That was the entire point of Colorado surrendering a 2027 first-round pick and a 2026 fifth-round pick to acquire Roy at the trade deadline. The Avalanche needed another forward who could give them quality minutes, provide some secondary scoring and make the lineup tougher to play against once the postseason arrived.

Roy checked those boxes almost immediately.

He scored in his second game with the Avalanche, finding the net against the Minnesota Wild on March 8 in a 3-2 shootout victory. Two games later, he scored again in Seattle during a 5-1 Avalanche win. Five games after that, he scored for the third time in a Colorado uniform against the Washington Capitals.

Then came the injury.

Roy suffered an upper-body injury and missed the next seven games, interrupting what had been an impressive start to his time in Denver.

He didn’t exactly light up the scoresheet after returning, either. But that didn’t make his postseason contribution any less important.

Roy scored three goals and added three assists for six points in 13 playoff games, including the overtime winner in Game 2 against the Los Angeles Kings. Colorado would go on to sweep Los Angeles in four games, and Roy had already established himself as the kind of depth piece teams need when the games matter most.

Now comes the interesting part.

Roy has a chance to turn a strong three-month audition into something much bigger.

The 29-year-old is entering the final season of the five-year, $15 million contract he signed with the Vegas Golden Knights on Aug. 2, 2022. He will become an unrestricted free agent on July 1, 2027, and if he has the kind of season Colorado believes he is capable of having, the Avalanche could have a decision to make.

It’s worth remembering just how familiar Roy is with the Avalanche.

He was part of the Vegas team that knocked Colorado out of the 2021 Stanley Cup Playoffs in six games. The Avalanche had won the Presidents’ Trophy that season, only to watch their playoff run end at the hands of the Golden Knights.

Five years later, Roy is wearing an Avalanche sweater.

And now, instead of being the player trying to end Colorado’s season, he could become part of the group trying to finally finish the job.

Roy’s offensive numbers in Colorado were hardly eye-popping, but the sample size was small.

He scored three goals and five points in 15 regular-season games after arriving from Toronto, giving him 0.33 points per game with the Avalanche. That was almost identical to his 0.34 PPG mark with the Maple Leafs earlier in the season.

More importantly, Roy has already demonstrated that he can produce more than that over a full season.

From 2021-22 through 2024-25, Roy recorded at least 30 points in four consecutive seasons. He posted 39 points in 2022-23 and followed that up with a career-high 41 points during the 2023-24 season in Vegas.

Now, Colorado needs to see that version of Roy again.

With Valeri Nichushkin and Jack Drury no longer in the picture, the Avalanche are going to need Roy to take another step forward. He doesn’t have to replace either player individually, but their departures leave Colorado needing more from its middle-six forwards. Roy has the size, versatility and experience to take on a bigger role, and this could be his opportunity to prove he can handle it.

He doesn’t need to become a 60-point player. He doesn’t need to suddenly become one of the most important forwards on the roster.

If Roy can settle into a consistent middle-six role and get back into the 35-to-40-point range, suddenly a contract extension starts looking considerably more attractive

Of course, Colorado doesn’t exactly have unlimited money to throw around.

The Avalanche currently have only a little more than $400,000 in projected cap space heading into the 2026-27 season. And that’s before considering the organization’s much larger long-term priorities.

Cale Makar is eligible for an extension, and when the time comes, his next contract could carry an AAV anywhere from $17 million to $20 million. If the Avalanche want to lock up their star defenseman for the next eight years, though, they’re running out of time. The new collective bargaining agreement kicks in on September 16, at which point teams will only be able to sign players to a maximum of seven years.

That makes every dollar important.

Roy isn’t going to be the first name on Colorado’s extension list. But that doesn’t mean he can’t become an important piece of the team’s future plans.

The salary cap is projected to rise to approximately $113 million for the 2027-28 season. If that projection holds, Colorado could have considerably more flexibility than it does right now. And if Roy can put together a season in which he plays, say, 79 of the Avalanche’s 84 regular-season games and records 13 goals and 29 assists for a career-high 42 points, he could very well put himself in position to earn another contract—potentially in the neighborhood of a $4 million 

The question is whether Roy will do enough between now and then to justify using some of that flexibility on him.

That said, this is a massive prove it season for Roy and how successful he is will partly depend on how head coach Jared Bednar deploys his lines this season.

Roy averaged just 13:18 per game during his 15 regular-season appearances with Colorado and 12:01 during the playoffs. Those aren’t massive minutes, but they also leave plenty of room for his role to grow.

If Bednar increases his ice time to let’s say 14 to 15 minutes per game, his offensive ceiling theoretically should rise with it. However, Roy doesn’t necessarily need to go on a 50-point tear to earn an extension. 

If Bednar starts trusting Roy with closer to 14 or 15 minutes a night, his offensive ceiling should rise with it.

And that’s where this season becomes important. Roy doesn’t need to put up 50 points to earn another contract. He brings much more to the Avalanche than secondary scoring.

At 6-foot-4 and 200 pounds, Roy can be a physical presence around the net, win battles along the boards and make the kind of plays that gives your teammates a chance to score. Those little details can often be the difference between a scoring chance and a wasted possession.

Another strong playoff performance could make it even harder for Colorado to let him walk.

Now Roy gets a full season in the blue and burgundy to prove he belongs in Colorado beyond 2026-27. If he can stay healthy, produce consistently and continue making the little plays that made him valuable after the trade deadline, the Avalanche may have a decision to make next summer.

For now, the opportunity is there. It’s up to Roy to make the most of it.