The Dallas Stars will be at Ball Arena on Tuesday for one of the biggest games remaining on the Avalanche’s schedule. That makes this a good time to talk about the complicated nature of urgency versus patience when it comes to contending for the Stanley Cup.
Dallas has spent the past few seasons trying to catch up to Colorado at the top of the Central Division. The Avalanche rallied to win the division a season ago, and both teams are locked in a battle with the Winnipeg Jets this year.
Neither team’s ultimate goal is to just hang a division title banner, though. Dallas goalie Jake Oettinger said at NHL All-Star weekend that his Stars team knows that if it wants to reach its ultimate goal, that journey is likely to run through Denver.
“We knew if we had to play Colorado, we were going to be in one,” said Avs forward Fredrick Olofsson, who played for the Stars last season. “It was kind of a shocker when Seattle beat them, but then that made us think, ‘Oh (expletive), Seattle is the real deal, too.”
This group of Avalanche players has won the Stanley Cup. The Stars have been to a Cup Final — after knocking the Avs out of the bubble in a seven-game thriller in 2020 — and the conference finals last year.
Both teams are stocked with franchise-level players. Both expect to be Stanley Cup contenders for years to come. There are a few ex-Stars on the Colorado roster, and other connections abound.
This is a fledgling rivalry, but one with plenty of respect on both sides.
“They’re a really good team,” Avs forward Andrew Cogliano said. “I think (general manager Jim Nill) has done a great job there in terms of consistently making solid teams and bringing in young guys. That’s probably the difference since I was there is they’ve been able to add some really good young players that they drafted and developed. (Peter DeBoer) is obviously a really good coach. …
“They are one of those teams that you’re going to have to earn it to win in a playoff series in every single game.”
Dallas has a great core, highlighted by Oettinger, Miro Heiskanen, Jason Robertson and Roope Hintz. Colorado has a better one, though outside of Cale Makar, they are all slightly older than the top guys in Dallas.
Both teams also have strong outer-circle core players, or secondary stars. What Cogliano touched on, though, could become a real problem for the Avs in the near future.
The only regular on the current Avs roster whom the organization drafted since taking Cale Makar in the first round of the 2017 draft is Bo Byram, at No. 4 the following year. The Avs have made only seven selections in the first three rounds of the past four drafts, and prospects like Drew Helleson and Justin Barron were part of trades to bring in key contributors for the 2022 Cup run.
Dallas had an all-time draft in 2017, adding Heiskanen, Oettinger and Robertson, but the Stars kept cooking in the years after that. Thomas Harley is one of the NHL’s top breakout players this year, and looks like a long-term No. 1B/No. 2 defenseman.
“He’s taken off this year,” Olofsson said. “… Everyone there kind of knew there was a plan for him, so credit to their management for executing it. It’s so easy to rush a guy like that, but the plan paid off.”
The Stars also have Wyatt Johnson, who is already a really good NHL player at 20 years old. Then there’s Logan Stankoven, who is one of the top drafted prospects in the sport not currently playing in the NHL.
Colorado has found ways to infuse younger players without a lot of draft capital, but college free agents aren’t going to have the franchise-altering upside that players like Harley, Johnston and Stankoven possess.
The Stars might be good enough to beat the Avalanche in the playoffs this season. They will have salary cap gymnastics to deal with in the future just like the Avs, but it’s also not hard to envision a scenario where Dallas is better over the next few seasons than its current edition.
This is very clearly a Stanley Cup-or-bust season for the Avalanche. What can the front office do between now and the trade deadline with the financial restrictions in place is one question. What are they willing to do, with another great shot at the Stanley Cup in front of them, is another.
People in NHL circles often talk about contention windows. For a team like the Stars, their core players are young enough to assume they can be contenders for the next several years. For a team like the Avs, having Makar, Nathan MacKinnon, Mikko Rantanen and Devon Toews gives them a very high floor to start every year.
The Tampa Bay Lighting had no time for being patient or calculating a contention window. They sacrificed future assets aplenty and last year came within two victories of a third straight title because of it.
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Maybe prospects like Calum Ritchie, Mikhail Gulyayev and Sean Behrens can develop into the next wave of key players to complement the current core. Maybe one of them can help fetch one more critical piece for a run at the Stanley Cup this year.
Will the Avs make one more all-in move in the coming weeks? While they have a great core, there’s certainly uncertainty about Gabe Landeskog and Valeri Nichushkin, not to mention how long they can keep the defense corps intact.
The best chance to win a second championship for MacKinnon, Makar and Rantanen might be right now. The Stars are trying to catch the Avs this year, but it’s plausible that those roles could be reversed in the coming seasons.
“I think we’ve got to get our game trending in the right direction in terms of where we want to get to and be that team in the playoffs,” Cogliano said. “I think with some of the players we have, you’re just always going to be a high-end team. We won two years ago and we want to be a team that continues to win (the Stanley Cup), but yeah I think they are right there with us at the end of the day.”
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