The Hockey News Picks Colorado To Win The Stanley Cup. But There’s More To The Story

There is a funny thing about being right for the wrong reason.

Back in the spring, The Hockey News planted its flag on the Colorado Avalanche as its Stanley Cup favorite. The argument was simple: Colorado had finally built enough depth around Nathan MacKinnon and Cale Makar to avoid relying so heavily on its two superstars.

Then the playoffs happened.

Makar got hurt. MacKinnon got banged up. The Avalanche were swept by the Vegas Golden Knights, and suddenly the very depth that made Colorado such an appealing championship pick was being asked to compensate for the two players who make the Avalanche what they are.

Our Editor-in-Chief, Ryan Kennedy, isn't backing away from the prediction.

He recently doubled down on Colorado as The Hockey News' pick to win the 2027 Stanley Cup, and it's easy to understand why.

But there's one part of the postmortem I would push back on.

The Avalanche didn't lose to Vegas simply because Makar missed the first two games or MacKinnon wasn't quite himself.

That's playoff hockey.

By the time the conference finals arrive, nobody is healthy. Everyone is playing through something. Everyone is a lesser version of themselves.

Colorado wasn't uniquely unfortunate, either.

Vegas captain Mark Stone played through a torn adductor, the same injury Matthew Tkachuk battled through during the previous postseason. Noah Hanifin was dealing with an upper-body injury that could have kept him out for months during the regular season, while Brayden McNabb entered the playoffs dealing with two injuries before suffering the facial injury that became one of the lasting images of the Stanley Cup Final.

The Golden Knights were hurting, too.

And they still beat Colorado.

That's why the Avalanche's loss says less about bad injury luck and more about the matchup itself.

Vegas had the personnel, structure and discipline to attack the very things that made Colorado so dangerous. The Avalanche want to play fast, attack through the middle and turn broken plays into scoring chances before opponents can recover.

Vegas was built to make that miserable.

The Golden Knights could clog the middle, win battles along the walls and turn the series into the kind of physical, territorial fight that doesn't necessarily favor Colorado's speed game.

The injuries didn't help. Of course they didn't.

But the Avalanche didn't lose to an inferior team that simply caught them at the wrong time. They ran into a very good hockey team with a blueprint for beating them—and Vegas executed it.

That distinction matters when looking ahead.

Because Kennedy's larger argument remains difficult to dismiss.

Colorado has continued to build around its superstar core. Makar is locked in for eight years. MacKinnon remains the engine of the franchise. Martin Necas is coming off a 100-point season, while Nazem Kadri and Nicolas Roy give the Avalanche legitimate depth down the middle.

Brett Kulak is back on defense, and Jaden Schwartz gives Colorado another veteran forward who, if healthy, could become a valuable addition.

Then there's Zach L'Heureux.

If nothing else, L'Heureux gives the Avalanche something they have occasionally lacked: legitimate bite.

Colorado doesn't need to abandon its speed-and-skill identity. But there is a difference between playing fast and being easy to play against, and L'Heureux should make the Avalanche considerably more difficult to push around.

Fabian Lysell is another intriguing wild card.

If Colorado can turn Lysell into another reclamation success story, perhaps something resembling what it accomplished with Valeri Nichushkin, suddenly the forward group gets even deeper.

There are plenty of reasons to believe the Avalanche can win the Stanley Cup.

There are also plenty of reasons not to assume they will.

The Central Division remains loaded. Minnesota and Dallas aren't going anywhere, and the Western Conference is filled with teams capable of turning a playoff series into a war of attrition.

And if Colorado meets Vegas again, the Avalanche will have to prove last spring was an aberration rather than evidence of a genuine matchup problem.

So yes, Kennedy is sticking with Colorado.

And I understand why.

The Avalanche have the stars. They have the depth. They have the goaltending. And they’ve finally added some nastiness to a roster that has badly needed it for the better part of the last few years.

Now they have to prove all of it can hold up when the games become heavier, the space disappears and the margin for error gets razor thin.

Everything is there: the talent, the opportunity and, perhaps, the best roster Colorado has had around MacKinnon and Makar in years.

But after what happened last spring, certainty is a luxury this team hasn’t earned yet.

We'll see.