As the calendar turns to 2025, the Colorado Avalanche sit third in the Central Division with a record of 24-15-0 through 39 games and are two games shy of the halfway point of the 2024-25 NHL season. The team has won 24 of 35 games since starting the season on a four-game losing streak and suddenly looks more like the Stanley Cup contenders they were touted as in preseason predictions.
While there is plenty of hockey left to be played, the playoff chase and the awards races have started to take shape and several members of the Avalanche organization look to figure heavily into the discussions for some of the biggest trophies at the end of the season.
Without further ado, let’s dive into which four figures could join their peers in the annals of NHL history and be in conversation for one of the NHL’s year-end awards.
Nathan MacKinnon, Hart Memorial Trophy
First up is superstar center Nathan MacKinnon who is looking to become the first back-to-back winner since Alexander Ovechkin accomplished the feat during the 2007-08 and 2008-09 seasons. The Avalanche pivot scored 51 goals (fourth among all skaters), 89 assists (third), and 140 points (second) last season, with all three marks representing new career highs. While he isn’t on track to obliterate last season’s totals, he still paces all skaters in almost every offensive category.
MacKinnon has only scored 14 goals in 39 games and is shooting at a 9.3% clip in all situations this season, which is his lowest conversion rate since the 2016-17 season (6.4%). Even so, he has elevated his playmaking in response, with his 50 helpers in 39 games putting him on track to eclipse the century mark this season. That would be the third time in 30 years that a player has tallied 100 or more assists in a single season after Nikita Kucherov and Connor McDavid – last season’s Hart Trophy runners-up – hit the milestone in 2023-24.
MacKinnon leads the league in even-strength points (45) and is tied for first with Kucherov with 1.64 points-per-game (P/G). While per-game metrics should be weighed more heavily in trophy discussions, it will be difficult to deny the Canadian a second-consecutive Hart win if he carries the shorthanded Avalanche to one of the Western Conference’s top playoff seeds.
Cale Makar, James Norris Memorial Trophy
Few teams are blessed with players (mostly forwards) who have the talent to win the Hart Trophy, let alone also having a defenseman who is likely to be in serious contention for the Norris Trophy. The Avalanche are one of those teams, with 26-year-old Cale Makar vying for the second Norris of his burgeoning Hall of Fame career. Makar has been named a finalist in four of his first five NHL seasons, and looks to add a fifth nomination in six seasons with his efforts to date during the 2024-25 campaign.
Makar leads all defenders in every meaningful offensive category including goals (13), assists (35), points (48), and even-strength points (28) while also sitting second in P/G (1.23). Makar has also been given one of the heaviest on-ice workloads in the league.
Only Zach Werenski and Mikhail Sergachev are playing more per game in all situations, with Makar ranking 26th in average even-strength ice time, fourth in average usage on the power play, and 67th while shorthanded. He’s expanded his profile of deployment and become indispensable in every situation.
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The only other defender who could likely challenge Makar is last season’s winner, Quinn Hughes of the Vancouver Canucks. While his supporting cast is far from terrible, Hughes doesn’t have the luxury of playing with the likes of MacKinnon and Rantanen up front, or of having a blue line partner in the mold of defensive stalwart Devon Toews, and is still putting up pristine results.
Makar likely has a very slight lead in the race when accounting for the voting bloc’s affinity for high scoring totals, but Hughes or even Werenski could assume the top spot with a dominant second half of the season.
Mackenzie Blackwood, Vezina Trophy
How many times has the Vezina Trophy winner played for more than one team in the season in which they won the award? None. After all, teams don’t usually make a habit of trading away elite goaltenders midseason. Mackenzie Blackwood – though unlikely – has a chance to buck the trend and establish a piece of NHL history in the process.
The 28-year-old goaltender started the season with the rebuilding San Jose Sharks, but his pending unrestricted free agent (UFA) status along with his play threatening the team’s draft position made him a prime candidate to be traded before the deadline.
The Sharks found a willing partner in the Avalanche who had been struggling to accumulate wins behind the porous goaltending of Alexandar Georgiev and Justus Annunen, both of whom were traded in separate deals for Blackwood (Georgiev) and Scott Wedgewood (Annunen).
Blackwood’s dark-horse Vezina case begins with his play behind an abysmal Sharks’ defense which is allowing the highest rate of shots against and the second-highest rate of scoring chances against in all situations.
In 19 games with San Jose this season before being traded, Blackwood posted a .911 save percentage (SV%) and saved nearly seven goals above expected (GSAx), both of which are significantly above league average. Since joining the Avalanche, he boasts a .932 SV% to go with six wins in seven games and a plus-4.7 GSAx.
Among 27 goalies to have played in at least 20 games this season, Blackwood ranks third in SV% (.916), 13th in goals-against average/GAA (2.72), and ranks ninth in GSAx (plus-11.5) despite featuring heavily for the basement-dwelling Sharks. The two Avalanche goalies are likely to split starts over the second half of the season, but expect Blackwood to earn some Vezina Trophy votes if he plays a majority of Colorado’s games and maintains his performance from the first half of the campaign.
Jared Bednar, Jack Adams Award
It is ironic that Avalanche head coach Jared Bednar may finally win the Jack Adams Award as the NHL’s best coach for a season in which the team is on pace for the fourth-fewest points of his nine-year tenure with the organization.
Bednar’s only Jack Adams nomination came in 2017-18 after a season in which he guided the Avalanche to a 47-point improvement from the disastrous 2016-17 season which saw him take over from Patrick Roy who abruptly departed several weeks before the start of training camp.
Since the start of Bednar’s tenure with the Avalanche, the Avalanche have the third-most regular-season wins (343) and boast the third-highest PTS% (.645). They have also won the third-most playoff games since 2018 (49) and rank first in win percentage (61%) coupled with their dominant 2022 Stanley Cup run. The Avalanche have ranked sixth in the league or better by PTS% four times over Bednar’s reign, but have never won the Presidents’ Trophy.
As Bednar’s lone nomination suggests, the Jack Adams Award has historically been given to a coach whose team posseses a certain profile. A bench boss gains recognition by either presiding over a significant year-over-year improvement, getting an unexpected team into the playoffs, or keeping a team competitive under difficult extenuating circumstances.
If Bednar manages to coach the Avalanche to one of the West’s top seeds in a season riddled with injuries to key players and dealing with poor goaltending, this could finally be his year to claim the elusive Jack Adams Award. The Avalanche rank seventh by their share of shots and second by share of scoring chances at five-on-five despite missing much of their forward depth for a majority of the first half of the season. If that doesn’t earn a coach a nomination at the very least, who knows what will.
Avalanche Have Several Worthy NHL Awards Candidates
Though the 2024-25 season has not gone according to plan, the Avalanche still boast some of the NHL’s brightest stars on and off the ice, each of whom is capable of making a significant impact on any given night. If Colorado is to reclaim its crown atop the Western Conference, the four aforementioned individuals will have to continue being among the league’s best. So far, there’s little to think that they can’t do so in 2025.
Data courtesy of Evolving Hockey, Natural Stat Trick, and the NHL.
