One Media Outlet Believes Avalanche Are NHL’s Best Team

There has already been plenty of debate about whether or not the Colorado Avalanche have improved this summer. Quite frankly, I’ve been giving it a little bit of time to see if they make any additional moves before comparing them to other teams around the league.

However, there’s one media outlet that has seen enough, and they think the Avalanche should be looked at as the best team in the NHL right now.

In their mid-summer power rankings, Sportsnet has placed Colorado at the top, ranking them above the defending Stanley Cup Champion Vegas Golden Knights as the best team in the NHL. The reason why? For one, the moves they seem to be fans of the moves Colorado made. However, there’s another reason why they are bullish on the Avalanche – rest.

Here’s what their write-up says…

“1. Colorado Avalanche The 2022 champs didn’t advance past Round 1 in 2023, but the Avs are poised to make noise again. Colorado knows captain Gabriel Landeskog is going to be on long-term injured all season, so it can stuff his $7-million salary there. Ryan Johansen and Ross Colton give a nice, new look to the centre crew and Jonathan Drouin is a fun bounce-back bet. Unlike last season, the Avs should be rested and hungry when the puck drops in October.”

Rest is one thing we often forget about. The Avalanche, at no point during the season last year, were healthy, and it started in training camp. With the NHL looking to go back to a normal schedule, it was a shorter summer for Colorado. If you look at the calendar, Vegas won the Stanley Cup on June 14, while Game 6 against Tampa Bay was on June 26 for Colorado.

With Colorado getting knocked out in round one, they’ll have a longer summer to rest their bumps and bruises, which might not be the worst thing.

A lot is riding on Johansen and Drouin showing they have the ability to bounce back in a big way, but the team certainly has the star power beyond that to be one of the top teams in the league. Heck, they won the Central Division last year, even though they dealt with 465 man games lost due to injury.

We shall see how this upcoming season goes. For the record, here’s the entire top five…

1. Colorado
2. Vegas
3. Edmonton
4. Toronto
5. New Jersey

Where would you rank Colorado in comparison to other teams around the NHL?