The Hockey News polled its site editors on pre-season predictions and the Colorado Avalanche ended up in quite a few of the results. The Hockey News posted a pre-season prediction questionnaire to its site editors, which consisted of 32 inquiries ranging from trophy winners to biggest disappointments. And the Colorado Avalanche ended up in quite a few of the results. More than half of the team site editors have projected that Cale Makar will win the Norris Trophy this season — including myself. Makar, who won the esteemed accolade for best defenseman in 2022, received 18 of 34 votes. He has been a finalist in three of his four full seasons since entering the NHL with the Colorado Avalanche in 2019. While the majority of site editors believe Edmonton Oilers’ Connor McDavid will, once again, win the Hart Trophy, a couple of us said it’s Nathan MacKinnon’s year. He and McDavid’s teammate, Leon Draisaitl, tied for second with two votes each. Mikko Rantanen got a nod to win the Maurice “Rocket” Richard Trophy, awarded to the player who scores the most goals. He came in third place with four votes, but most of the editors say it will be McDavid again. Rantanen had a career-high season with 55 goals in 2022-23 so the possibility of him grabbing the highest goal-scorer title is good. The Carolina Hurricanes and Edmonton Oilers are the highest-slated teams to win the Stanley Cup, but the Avalanche tied with the Dallas Stars for the second-most considered. The Avs also landed tied for second with the New Jersey Devils to win the President’s Trophy. Four writers, including myself, voted Ryan Johansen as the player most likely to benefit from a change in scenery [https://thehockeynews.com/nhl/colorado-avalanche/featured/will-ryan-johansen-have-a-breakout-season-with-the-avalanche]. Jonathan Drouin received two votes as the player due for a breakout. THN will roll out a three-part series with a culmination of the results for all the questions and who received votes.
