The Colorado Avalanche’s quest to qualify for the Stanley Cup Playoffs for an eighth consecutive season begins in Las Vegas and ends in Southern California.
Colorado’s schedule for the 2024-25 season was released Tuesday morning. It features six homestands that are four games or longer, only one road trip longer than four games and a 15-day break in February for the 2025 4 Nations Face Off.
Here are some of the top things to know and top games on the Avalanche schedule:
1. The Avs open the season Oct. 9 in Las Vegas against the Golden Knights. It’s a matchup featuring the 2022 champions against the 2023 champs on the second day of the season … on this side of the Atlantic Ocean. New Jersey and Buffalo are playing two games in Prague the week before, but Oct. 8 is opening night. Colorado finishes the season with back-to-back road games at Los Angeles and Anaheim.
2. Colorado’s home opener is Oct. 12 against Columbus, but the highlight of the four-game homestand is two nights later. Patrick Roy will return to Ball Arena for the first time since 2016 when the New York Islanders come to Denver. Roy was named the Islanders coach in January.
3. The first trip to Utah is Oct. 24. Utah Hockey Club, which is formerly the Arizona Coyotes but won’t finalize a team name until the 2025-26 season, will play at Delta Center in Salt Lake City, also home to the Jazz. Colorado is playing a preseason game in Utah, but it’s at the Utah Grizzlies’ arena.
4. Bo Byram will return to Ball Arena on Jan. 2 for the first time since being traded to the Buffalo Sabres. The Avs will face Byram and the Sabres before that Dec. 3 in Buffalo. Other notable ex-Avs who will make their return to Denver this season: Sean Walker with Carolina (Nov. 9), Brandon Duhaime (Nov. 15) and Yakov Trenin with Minnesota (Jan. 20).
5. The Avs will face the current Stanley Cup champions, the Florida Panthers, in South Florida on Nov. 23 and at Ball Arena on Jan. 6.
6. Matt Duchene and the Dallas Stars will return to Denver for the first time since ending the Avs’ 2023-24 season on May 18. The Stars will back on March 16.
Dallas Stars center Matt Duchene (95) shoots and scores game winning, double overtime goal against Colorado Avalanche goaltender Alexandar Georgiev (40) to win Game 6 of the second round of the 2024 NHL Stanley Cup Playoffs 2-1 at Ball Arena in Denver on Friday, May 17, 2024. Avalanche center Nathan MacKinnon (29) and defenseman Josh Manson (42) tried to defend. (Andy Cross, The Denver Post)
7. The Avalanche has 12 sets of back-to-back games. The first is Oct. 27-28, which is the only one where both games are at home. There are two that feature a home game and a road game — Nov. 29 at Dallas plus Nov. 30 vs. Edmonton, then March 10 vs. Chicago plus at Minnesota the next night.
8. The hardest stretch of the season is likely Nov. 23-30. Colorado plays Florida, Tampa Bay and Dallas on the road, plus Vegas and Edmonton at home in a span of eight days.
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9. Valeri Nichushkin was suspended May 13 for at least six months. That means he’ll miss at least the first 16 games of the season, but it’s likely to be more. Once he’s reinstated by the league, he’ll still need practice time to get up to game speed. And that’s if the Avs definitely welcome him back, which isn’t a sure thing.
10. The longest road trip of the season is also the weirdest geographically. Colorado has a five-game trek from Dec. 3-10. The first four games essentially make a baseball diamond, only it goes second base (at Buffalo), home (Carolina), third (Detroit) and first (New Jersey). At least the fifth game (Pittsburgh) is on the way home.
11. There is another stretch of five consecutive road games, but it will be multiple trips. Colorado plays the final three games before the 4 Nations break in February at Vancouver, Calgary and Edmonton, then the first two after the tournament are at Nashville and St. Louis.
12. If we just go by the 2023-24 standings, the schedule matrix did spit out a favorable slate for the Avalanche. The only team in the Central Division the Avs play on the road once is Dallas, the defending champs. Meanwhile, the four teams from the Pacific that Colorado only visits one time are Edmonton, Los Angeles, Vegas and Seattle. The Oilers, Kings and Golden Knights all made the postseason, so that’s four of the other seven playoff teams in the West that are one-trip cities for the Avs.
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