With the NHL’s preseason finally – and mercifully – complete, all eyes turn to the 2023-24 regular season which is set to open with the Nashville Predators taking on the Tampa Bay Lightning on Oct. 10.
Related: Key Dates of the 2023-24 NHL Schedule
The Colorado Avalanche will host the Los Angeles Kings the following night and marks the first game of a campaign that once again carries with it high expectations. The winners of the 2022 Stanley Cup endured a trying championship defense that was marred by numerous injuries to key players, and were felled by the upstart Seattle Kraken in the opening round.
That’s in the past, however, and the Avalanche can take solace in the fact that apart from captain Gabriel Landeskog, all of their stars should enter the season in good health. Mix in a busy offseason in which general manager Chris MacFarland gave his roster a face-lift and suddenly capturing another title is within the realm of possibility.
A significant factor in their Cup aspirations will be their schedule, with a relatively weaker Western Conference and Central Division handing the Avalanche an easier collection of matchups on the year. Let’s dive into a breakdown of their early-season schedule, with a focus on their games in October and November.
Avalanche’s 2023-24 Schedule Among NHL’s Easiest
According to Tankathon, the Avalanche own the second-easiest schedule in the NHL this season based on their strength-of-schedule (SOS) metric. There will be fluctuations as more up-to-date data is fed into their calculations, but the estimate lines up based on face value.
Related: Avalanche Have a Clear Path to Winning the 2024 Stanley Cup
In total, the Avalanche will face the Chicago Blackhawks (four times), Arizona Coyotes (four), San Jose Sharks (three), Anaheim Ducks (three), Philadelphia Flyers (twice), and Montreal Canadiens (twice) a combined 18 times in 2023-24. Despite each team making improvements to their roster this offseason, at least three of that group of five are likely to finish bottom-five in the league again this season.
The Hockey Writers’ site-wide predictions have each of the Canadiens (Atlantic), Flyers (Metropolitan), Blackhawks (Central), and Sharks (Pacific) finishing at the bottom of their respective divisions. The Ducks (Pacific) and Coyotes (Central) are also predicted to finish second-to-last in their divisions.
Our site’s thoughts are also echoed over at ESPN, with their industry insiders agreeing with each of our four division basement dwellers and separating the clear stragglers from the playoff and Cup contenders.
Using a more analytical lens, the team at The Athletic has projected the Sharks, Canadiens, Blackhawks, Ducks, and Flyers to languish in the NHL’s basement – in that order (from ‘NHL season previews 2023-24: Counting down the teams from worst to first’, The Athletic, 9/20/23).
It’s no surprise then that the Avalanche are once again projected to finish high in the standings, with multiple media outlets solidifying the ranking of the teams that make up a significant chunk of Colorado’s early-season opponents.
Avalanche Set to Face Light Opening Schedule
Given that the Avalanche’s overall schedule is projected to be one of the easiest in the entire league, it’s not much of a surprise that the same is true of the team’s upcoming games over the first two months of the season. Let’s look at both October and November in turn.
The Avalanche are set to play eight games in the month of October, with only three of those matchups coming against teams that qualified for the 2023 Playoffs. Three of those games are scheduled against clubs that finished in the bottom 10 of the overall standings (Sharks, Blackhawks, and the New York Islanders). In comparison, the November schedule appears to be slightly more difficult for the Avalanche. Seven of the month’s 14 games will be against playoff teams.
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In total, 10 of the Avalanche’s 22 games over October and November will come against playoff teams from last season, and seven will be against teams in the bottom 10 of the overall standings (the previous three plus the St. Louis Blues twice, the Coyotes, and the Ducks).
The only aspect in which the October schedule appears tougher is the Avalanche’s share of home-ice advantage, with six of the team’s first eight games coming on the road. In November, eight of the 14 scheduled games will take place in Colorado which should soften the blow of playing increasingly stronger competition.
NHL Preseason Power Rankings Paint Similar Picture
For readers who might think that using last season’s standings as a proxy for schedule strength this season misses the key context of the past offseason, recent assessments of NHL teams don’t differ all that much. Using The Hockey Writers’ preseason power rankings, I can generate a rough estimate of the strength of the Avalanche’s schedule with a more updated ranking.
Seven of the Avalanche’s first 22 games come against teams in the bottom 10, including the Sharks, Blackhawks, Blues (twice), Ducks, Coyotes, and the Calgary Flames. A majority of that collection of teams appear to still be in the rebuilding phase of their respective competitive timelines, so an extra year of results and player development would not necessarily shake up the league hierarchy to a significant degree.
For what it’s worth, the Avalanche won 13 of 17 games against the Blackhawks, Sharks, Coyotes, Canadiens, and Flyers last season. Don’t expect much of a change in results in 2023-24.
Avalanche Can Ride Strong Start to Stanley Cup Win
In a season that spans several months and over half of a calendar year, placing greater importance on one specific month over another might seem illogical on the surface.
A THW article from 2021 which took a more in-depth look at how recent Stanley Cup winners fared in their initial slate of games makes a different conclusion. Instead, how a team starts the season is a significant factor in determining their fate in the end-of-season standings and the playoffs.
Read the entire piece yourself but the most significant takeaway (the piece was written prior to the 2021-22 season) is that in the past 27 years, only three Stanley Cup-winning teams owned a losing record after their first 10 games of the season. Ironically enough, the most recent such example is the dominant 2021-22 Avalanche who sported a surprising 4-5-1 ledger after 10 games before winning 13 of their next 17 and 28 of their next 33.
A couple of notable outliers prove that there is no one guaranteed method or avenue to success in the NHL but teams should still aim to win most of their games early on to get the momentum rolling on a hopeful Stanley Cup pursuit. Good teams will win more games regardless, but there’s no harm in making things easier in what is often a slog of a season.
