Trendsetter and target
Colorado Avalanche win their third Stanley Cup in style
This was supposed to be another season-in-review post, zooming in on the performance and future of a particular member of the Edmonton Oilers. But a funny thing happened while I was writing it up.
The Colorado Avalanche won the Stanley Cup.
Now, it’s always been a particular fear of mine that one day the Oilers’ day will finally come, and Lord Stanley’s Mug will make a triumphant return to Good Old Ourtown — only to discover that of all the other teams, save possibly the losing finalist, nobody cares. They’ll all be too immersed in their own club’s trade rumours and buyout candidates and hot prospects and possible draft candidates to notice what’s happening in the real world, or what passes for it in hockey.
So I’m not going to be “that guy.” That other post can wait a day or two; right now it’s time to give a tip of le chapeau to the latest NHL champions.
Let’s start at the top: the Avalanche are the team of Joe Sakic, who captained them to their first two titles in 1996 and 2001, and has now led the charge to their third Cup from the general manager’s office. It took nine long years in this role to grasp the Grail, but Sakic played the long game to perfection. As recently as 201617, Sakic’s club finished dead last in the 30-team NHL, a canyon-esque 21 points behind 29th-place Vancouver. Five years later, they’re the Cup champs.
That club already had Gabriel Landeskog, still their captain today. They already had Nathan Mackinnon and Mikko Rantanen. To that nucelus Sakic would add two more high-end picks in Cale Makar and Bowen Byram, the latter after making a key trade (of Matt Duchene) that landed that pick.
In large part, Sakic built around that core with a series of crafty trades:
Two-way centre Nazem Kadri came in from Toronto in a 2019 swap that featured future Oiler Tyson Barrie as the centrepiece going the other way.
Top-pairing defender Devon Toews came from the Islanders in 2020 for a pair of second-round draft picks and no roster players at all. Sakic followed up by locking down Toews to a club-friendly four-year deal at $4.1 million that looks golden for two more years.
Starting netminder Darcy Kuemper was added in the summer of 2021 in an exchange for a good prospect and two future draft picks. The former Red Deer Rebel started out with the Minnesota Wild courtesy a 2009 sixth-round draft choice that originally belonged to Edmonton. Now he’s a Stanley Cup champion.
At deadline 2022, Sakic went hard for proven depth players, adding Josh Manson, Andrew Cogliano, Nico Sturm and Artturi Lehkonen for a variety of prospects and picks. All were regulars throughout the playoffs, chipping in with huge plays at key times. Lehkonen in particular was a beast, playing great two-way hockey. He also scored the series-winning goal in both the Conference final (in OT vs. Edmonton) and in Stanley Cup finals, the final tally in Colorado’s tight 2-1 win in Tampa Bay.